Tiberium Wars
by Peptuck
Summary: As Tiberium spreads across the Earth, the Global Defense Initiative finds itself facing a reforged and vengeful Brotherhood of Nod, and an even more mysterious, inhuman force that holds the secrets to the green crystal... A novelization of Tiberium Wars.
1. Prologue

_**Foreword:** _ I've been going back over this story, revising and rewriting it chapter by chapter. You'll see some annotations at the end of each author's notes, which themselves are going to be chopped down to reduce the amount of angry ranting I've done while writing this story.

Have fun reading!

* * *

_**Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars**_

* * *

_"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."_

_-Robert A. Heinlein, __Starship Troopers_

* * *

_**Prologue**_

* * *

Corporal Stephen Edwards squinted behind his visor and stepped forward, raising his left hand as the truck approached his Zone Security checkpoint. He could see the logo on the side, belonging to a transport company that delivered barley and soy products from the western farms in Tennessee.

"Good morning," he called as the truck stopped, and gave the driver a friendly smile. He was equal parts custom agent, military police, and chemical weapons specialist, and unlike frontline infantry, he wore an open-faced helmet and lighter armor of interlocking ceramic plates. His GD2 rifle hung over his shoulder by its strap, where he could still get to it quickly if need arose. Automated gun towers and guard towers with GDM-12 machineguns flanked the checkpoint, which lead to a massive set of doors that were built into the wall looming overhead to separate the Blue and Yellow Zones. Two six-man squads of Zone Security troopers stood around the checkpoint, one on watch and the second manning the checkpoint itself.

"Morning," replied the truck driver, what looked like a kid barely out of his teens. The driver held out a datapad, which showed his credentials, cargo, and destination, which Edwards took, surprised that the man hadn't waited until he'd been asked.

"In a hurry today?" he asked, still smiling as he read the information. Miles Benson, truck driver for Tanner Foods Inc, based out of Knoxville. Cargo, about ten tons of soy patties.

Private First Class Barnes circled around the side of the truck, carrying a small handheld scanner that was designed to check for tiberium infestation. The food was supposed to be processed and sealed, but the nasty green crystal had a tendency to slip into the most unexpected of places. There could have been fragments of tib-rock sprouting on the vehicle at that very moment, and that would be a disaster waiting to happen.

That was the risk of bringing anything from a Yellow Zone to a Blue Zone.

"Yeah," Miles said, chuckling. "I'm running a bit late today. Boss is gonna chew me out if I don't get there on time." Edwards nodded as he scanned the security pass. It looked like it checked out.

"We'll get you through quick, then," he assured the kid, and Miles relaxed. Probably new to the job, judging by his anxiety.

As Barnes continued his inspection, Edwards glanced back behind him, at the tunnel that passed through the immensely high wall that blocked off the eastern half of Carolina from the western half. On this side of the wall was rough land, with thick but scraggly grass rising out of yellow-brown soil, amidst weathered buildings that had seen better days . . . and this was right outside the wall.

On the other side, beyond the sonic emitters that fended off the deadly green infestation ravaging the planet, was a comparative paradise of tall buildings and thick, verdant plant life. The Blue Zones were the last refuges against the sickness that was tiberium, but they were small and scattered across the globe. For that reason, GDI defended them with a ferocity that could generously be called paranoia.

"How's it looking?" Edwards called as Barnes circled around the truck. The tech specialist shrugged as he came about on the other side.

"It looks clean, no green rot from what I can see-" he stopped as his scanner suddenly started wailing, and he looked up, then down at the device, his jaw agape.

"Tib-rock!" he shouted, bringing up his rifle. "At least half a ton of the shit in the back!"

"Tib-smuggler!" Edwards shouted, whirling toward Benson, his GD2 shooting up.

Corporal Edwards found himself looking down the barrel of a handgun, Benson's anxious demeanor replaced by an icy calm.

_"Peace through power!"_ the kid shouted, and Edwards dove to the ground as the handgun went off. Pain exploded from his left shoulder as the round slipped through his body armor, and he swung his rifle up, depressing the trigger. A burst scythed through the driver's side door, the flimsy metal no match for a GD2 assault rifle's 6.5mm rounds, but if he hit the smuggler Edwards couldn't tell.

More gunfire erupted from the window, and Edwards scrambled backward amidst the wild spray of desperate shots. He scrambled for behind one of the concrete barriers, and could hear the deep, cracking reports of other Zone Security rifles as they fired on the truck.

The scream of the truck driver echoed in his ears, a motto he has never heard personally but recognized instantly.

Nod. The smuggler was a Nod agent.

A moment later heat and force washed over where Edwards lay behind the concrete divider, shrapnel careening through the air and stabbing into the concrete wall. Edwards waited for the shrapnel to stop raining down, and then peeked over the barrier. The truck burned, intense heat rolling off it, and tiberium alarms were sounding. There wasn't much left of the truck, pieces of it lying around the checkpoint.

_Suicide bomber,_ he realized, pushing himself up. He'd killed himself to protect his cargo.

_Crazy Nod bastards._

* * *

Gray uniforms choked the entrance to the airport terminal as men and women went about their business, talking back and forth, syncing up personal computers, presenting identification to security personnel, and running errands. In the blue-white light of the room their skin tended to take on pallid hues, even the ones with darker skin tones, and combined with the gray dress uniforms it made everything seem antiseptic and unusually clean.

Battle Commander Alexander Karrde walked across the terminal, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder as he weaved through the dozens of Global Defense Initiative soldiers milling around in the terminal. Andrews Airbase had grown to be one of the largest airfields in the world, servicing one of the most populated Blue Zones on the planet, and as such it was a hub of transit for GDI's military personnel. Karrde himself had just gotten off of a V-35 Ox that had been ferrying a pair of fresh companies of newly minted soldiers that were being deployed to Washington D.C. from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. As with a lot of single passengers being ferried around by the military, Karrde was rolled onto an Ox already bound for the area rather than using a civilian passenger plane.

His left wrist buzzed, barely audible through the terminal's din, and Karrde looked down at the flatscreen mounted on his left forearm as he walked. The screen was part of his Combat Computer ("Comcom" for short), a device issued to all Battle Commanders as part of their mobile command and control duties, synced to computers built into the utility belt around his waist and the implants in his skull, including his artificial left eye - a relic of one of the police actions that had helped get him his current rank. The screen lit up, indicating the information he was about to receive wasn't sensitive - the built-in sensors would have transmitted the data directly to his retinas via laser otherwise.

It was a map of the terminal, and a single marked point just outside the building, which read "Sergeant Kinsley." With a nod, Karrde turned the screen off and passed through security, handing the fully-armed and armored guards his identification and holding out his hand for a DNA sample, followed by a retinal and vocal scan. The guards also ran a diagnostic on his Comcom to ensure it was safe. The security procedures were tight, but they were understandable considering the sophistication of the Brotherhood of Nod's infiltration and disguise techniques. Nod agents had reportedly impersonated even high-ranking officers and in one instance they had managed to almost perfectly fake the Director of Energy.

Once his identity was confirmed, the guards sent Karrde on his way, and he stepped out of the terminal and into the open, warm spring air. The roar of an Orca's engines greeted him as a wedge of the sleek VTOL craft shot through the sky overhead, wheeling about over the landing pads to the east. Their turbofans whirled and oriented themselves with the ground, the air swirling with waves of intense thermal energy as they settled into place in precise formation, descending to the landing pads in perfect unison. Karrde strode across the road toward the location marked by the blinking light on his Comcom, where a Pitbull all-terrain recon vehicle sat. A woman with close-cropped brown hair and clad in gray garrison fatigues was waiting by the vehicle, and saluted smartly as Karrde approached.

"Sergeant Kinsley, I presume?" he asked with a smile and a return salute, and she nodded, shaking his offered hand. He noticed her grip was strong, an even match for his, and knew that despite her slight size that she was as much a soldier as he.

"Yes sir," she replied. "I've been told you were needing a lift to the Pentagon?"

"It would be nice," he responded as she circled around the Pitbull. "They gave me an office there and everything, I suppose I should pay a visit."

He opened the passenger side door of the stubby, almost comical-looking vehicle. With its raised body elevated above a rugged suspension, the Pitbull resembled a child's radio-controlled car. That illusion was challenged by the quartet of twin-linked 180mm rocket launchers that were mounted on the back, the weapons guided by the advanced, miniaturized sensor suite built into the vehicle. It was designed as a recon and missile platform, to seek out hidden enemies and support armor and infantry in the field. But outside of combat operations, many officers preferred to use its speed and mobility for other, non-combat duties.

Kinsley settled into the driver's seat, while Karrde sat in the gunner's position next to her. He tapped a couple keys on the sophisticated computer system set in the dashboard front of him, and extended a cable from the side of his Comcom to link up with the Pitbull's communications suite. The Comcom's screen flashed, and then dimmed, lasers lancing out and tracking his retinas as the Pitbull pulled out of Andrews. Words appeared in front of his eyes and his vision darkened as he linked directly to the GDI global military network. One of the dozens of local Electronic Video Agents greeted him as he logged in, and began the handshaking routine that would let him connect with the orbiting _GSS Philadelphia_.

**Initializing….**

…

**Verifying Authentication.**

…

**Login Authentication Successful.**

_**Philadelphia **_**Uplink Successful.**

**Welcome back, Commander.**

* * *

"Peace Through Power."

The greeting was simple, quick, and automatic, a motto of the righteous, and he responded immediately.

"One Vision, One Purpose," Commander Logan Rawne replied with a smile as he extended his hand. The figure before him, clad in a black uniform with a thick, ceremonial red cape flowing out behind him, shook his offered hand.

"Brother-Captain Alvarez," he said, happy to see his old friend once again. "It has been a while."

"Time means nothing in the service of the Brotherhood, Commander Rawne," replied Alvarez. He turned and gestured behind him, down the hallway, wreathed in blood-red light, mist rising past their ankles. "Come, Commander. The meeting room is this way."

Rawne nodded as they walked down the passageway, flanked by his friend. Captain Jose Alvarez loomed over him in his black powered armor, his head shaved and his solid, blocky features wrinkled by a smile. By comparison, Rawne was a slender, dark-haired man clad in the simple black uniform of Nod officer, his hair longer and swept back, with a thick but trimmed goatee and mustache.

"You are still only a Captain? I would have expected you to have become a Major or higher after these years," he asked as he walked, and the looming Alvarez shrugged.

"In the service of the Black Hand of Kane, rank is of little importance," he replied. "We are each awarded according to our skills and each given a station in accordance with the grand vision of Kane."

Rawne nodded at his Brother's dogmatic devotion to the One Vision; ever since they had been Zone Runners a decade and a half ago, Jose Alvarez had always been exceptionally pious and devoted to the Brotherhood's mission and the One Purpose. Rawne was also a devoted servant, but he didn't allow his faith to interfere with his duties; it was that reason that he had pursued his advancement into the ranks of officers, while his old war comrade had taken the path of a warrior priest.

"I have not been told of why I was summoned here," Rawne remarked. The semi-formal speech patterns bothered him a bit. He never liked having to talk like this, but one didn't speak informally in public while in a temple of any kind. Tradition and all. But he'd be glad to be outside a holy place as soon as he could be.

Alvarez shrugged again, his cape rippling. They passed by a prayer room, dozens of acolytes seated around a holographic projector that was displaying General Kilian Qatar, giving her famous "Origins of Nod" speech.

"You have seen it yourself, have you not?" Alvarez asked. "The preparations are well underway, and doubtless your summons have been made as part of the greater plan."

"I will admit that I managed to notice the troops massing here," Rawne said.

"You only noticed there were many more Sisters present than normal," Alvarez shot back, and Rawne grinned.

"A lady, particularly a devotee of the Brotherhood, never escapes my notice, old friend," he explained. "But I would like to know what my purpose is in this plan."

"You will learn in a moment, brother," Alvarez replied, for they had paused before a large doorway. The Black Hand took off his left gauntlet and extended his hand, the glittering, green tattoo of inert Tiberium that engulfed his fingers shining in the red light. Laser scanners played over the complex weave of crystalline filaments carefully woven into his flesh, and the door slid open.

The room beyond was a chapel, and the ankle-high mist in the corridor outside rose to waist-height, and glowed pink in the red lighting. Rawne stepped forward, and noticed that Alvarez had stayed behind, his head lowered slightly as he stayed in the doorway. Frowning, Rawne stepped deeper into the room.

To his left were long rows of pews and seats, enough for hundreds of Nod worshippers, but no one was seated in the metal chairs. To his right, before high red and white stained glass windows, were a trio of data screens, rising out of the ground in man-height obelisk-shaped mounts, projecting lines of holy Nod texts in the archaic script of the Brotherhood.

The chamber was empty, and Rawne walked toward the center of the room, wondering why he had been summoned to the chapel.

"And he cried in a loud voice: _Lazarus, come forth_!"

The sound shook Rawne, and he stood stock still, not believing what he was hearing. The words, the _voice_ echoed in his ears, a familiar tone he had heard countless times, but always recorded and artificial. This voice was real, and it was _here_, in _this_ room.

There was movement to his right, behind the obelisks, and Rawne looked up, shock and awe filling his body as he laid eyes on the figure who emerged, framed by the brilliant light streaming from the stained glass.

"And Lazarus _did_ arise from the grave."

His smile sent shivers of devotion flowing through the Commander, and Rawne dropped to his knees, lowering his head as he saw the father of the Brotherhood of Nod, his Messiah and the one who was destined to lead the world into the golden age of Tiberium.

_Kane._

Rawne was speechless for the first few moments. He had heard rumors, and knew that GDI claimed to have actually _killed_ Kane in the Second Tiberium War, but had no corpse to prove it. The faith had been kept throughout the Brotherhood for the last two decades, and Rawne had dreamed one day of seeing Kane's prophetic return, just as he had when the glorious General Slavik had slain the traitor Hassan . . . .

This was . . . far too incredible to ask for. He was being spoken to, personally, in the flesh itself, by _Kane himself_.

"Rise, my son, and look upon me," Kane spoke, and Rawne slowly turned his gaze up toward the messiah, who regarded him with a gentle, understanding smile. He was bald, his head completely shaven, and his mouth wreathed with a close but thick mustache and goatee, perfectly trimmed and immaculate. Kane's dark eyes glittered with unfathomable intelligence and unshakable faith and generosity, and his voice echoed of knowledge, mercy, and benevolence that knew no bounds.

Kane raised his hands slightly, and Rawne understood his intention. Slowly, he rose to his feet, to face the messiah as an equal.

"I have always believed that faith was measured in deeds, not words," Kane explained as he stepped closer, "and while many of my children worshipped my name, their deeds betrayed them."

Rawne nodded, Kane's words striking a chord within his own faith, as if he knew the Commander down to his heart and soul. It was chilling and yet liberating at the same time.

"In my absence, they strayed from the path, but you, my son, your faith never wavered," Kane continued, his smile growing. "Not in Honduras or Jericho, or in the great Rio Insurrection. You risked your life countless times to topple GDI, to perpetuate our cause . . . to honor my name."

Rawne nearly choked, for at that moment Kane _bowed his head_ to him, for only an instant, his gratitude nearly making the soldier's legs go weak. That _Kane himself_ would acknowledge his actions as such was an honor he could scarcely believe, and Rawne honestly felt he didn't deserve, and yet it had been placed upon him by their messiah.

"Now, my son," he said, raising his eyes to meet Rawne's once more. "I must ask you to once more bring glory to the Brotherhood. I have seen that GDI has grown vulnerable, bloated by arrogance and complacency. Now is the time to strike! While they congratulate themselves on Tiberium advancements Nod made _decades_ ago, we will expose their weaknesses for all the world to see!"

As Kane spoke, his words came faster, with fury and passion and conviction, and Rawne felt himself being lifted up and carried by the messiah's emotions. The anger and contempt rang in his voice as he spoke of casting down the fascist Global Defense Initiative, the heathens and infidels that fought against the glory of Nod and the truth that was Tiberium.

"What do you ask of me?" Rawne asked, and Kane's anger faded, replaced by a sudden, understanding smile.

"You will go to one of our forward bases on the North American East Coast: a small camp we've established about a mile out from Goddard Space Center," Kane explained. "One of my intelligence agents, Ajay, will brief you. Like you, his faith is unquestioned."

Rawne bowed again, and Kane gestured toward the entrance of the chapel.

"Go now, my son," he commanded, and Rawne straightened. "More glory than you can possibly imagine awaits us, but only if you succeed in the mission I have laid out for you."

"What is this mission?" Rawne asked, curious as to what his leader would have tasked him with.

"The first shots of the Third Tiberium War, my son," Kane replied, his smile wide and genuine.

* * *

_**Author's **__**Notes:**_ Tiberium Wars was originally written as a counterpoint to the, let's be honest, turd-tastic official novelization. However, as time passed and I grew more in skill, I realized that it was taking on it's own life, becoming my personal interpretation of the setting and even moreso, my first true, serious foray into military sci-fi, which I approached with gusto. As I became less angry and more eager to write, I actually had a lot more fun growing and developing these characters.

Even so, I recognized plenty of flaws, many only visible in hindsight. Poor or overly lengthy descriptions, characters spouting exposition, and substantial inconsistencies in characterization were among a few. In addition, there were the inevitable issues with writing what was essentially an off-the-cuff, anger-inspired treatise. As is usual, I cringed a little as I read earlier chapters. So I resolved to begin rewriting my work, as well as adding annotations and notes at the end of each chapter to show my writing process. As I begin rewriting this story, I'll add annotations to the end, both explaining my changes and my thoughts while writing.

**Annotations: **This chapter was straightforward. I wanted to introduce both sides, and the passing remark Granger makes in the GDI intro sequence about a truck blowing itself makes for perfect fodder to explore and expand. We get an intro to the Blue Zones and Yellow Zones, as well as a good look at each of our viewpoint Commanders, as well as the portents of things to come. It was fun to write originally, and even more fun to mend and improve this time around.

When I originally wrote this chapter, I still had this idea in my head of the Nod characters speaking is a formal, religious tone to one another. This clashes with later works, especially with someone like Rawne, and while the formal dialogue works for a society bound by religious doctrine and gunpoint tradition, it felt a bit too stiff for me. Then I hit on the idea that the Nod characters are in a formal setting within a temple, so it would make sense for them to speak like that.

Until next chapter . . . .


	2. Chapter I: Heavy Calm

_**Chapter One: Heavy Calm**_

* * *

_"Complacency. That's what's killing mankind right now. Not tiberium, not starvation, not war or pestilence or any of the other horsemen. It's that fundamental human nature that makes us stick our heads in the dirt and pretend everything is fine. We're not going to go extinct because of tiberium, we're going to go extinct because humans are a single, glorious, collected whole of dumbasses."_

_-Colonel Nick "Havoc" Parker (retired)_

* * *

"You've never been to Washington, have you, sir?" Kinsley asked, to which Karrde shook his head as he looked over the latest intelligence reports, dated earlier today, June 17th, 2047. The Pitbull rolled over the highway bridge crossing the Potomac River, traveling southwest.

As his responsibility entailed handling all of the Eastern Seaboard of North America, he needed to be up to date on what was happening across the entire Zone. Though there were some civil incidents in a few cities, there was nothing major - certainly nothing worth noting regarding the local military forces. However, there were a few intelligence reports flagged as high priority, and his uplink in the Pitbull wasn't secure enough to access them here. The gist of it, though, was that Nod's threat level had been downgraded to Low, which meant GDI Intelligence Operations felt that there was little to no threat now.

"I spent most of my career over in B-7, actually," he replied, distracted.

"Japan?" Kinsley asked, and Karrde nodded.

"Beautiful place, but crowded," he said. "Compared with most other Blue Zones, which is saying something/ Ever had wasabi, Sergeant?" The soldier shook her head. "Like eating laser beams. Don't try it unless you're brave."

"I'll take that under advisement, sir," she replied.

Karrde looked out the armored windows as the Pitbull rolled down the streets of Washington D.C. Gleaming towers dominated the skyline, set among vast, open parks filled with green plants, jealously guarded by GDI's environmentalist corps due to the steady decline of plant life in the rest of the world. The occasional slender tiberium containment tower could be seen here and there, positioned over underground deposits of the valuable crystalline cancer, harvesting and processing it for use.

Clouds, blue skies, and buildings were reflected in the surface of streets that appeared to be made of polished glass - in reality a super-dense and highly durable composite material that made the asphalt of the last century look like wet mud. Sleek cars lined the roads, and buses and electric trains rolled through the city while sidewalks and crossings were choked with the constant movement of pedestrian traffic. There were people everywhere, thanks to the enormous population density of the Blue Zones.

Washington D.C. had, only a few decades ago, been the capital of the United States of America. The unstoppable spread of tiberium since the first meteor impacts in 1995 had eventually overwhelmed most governments; between the atmospheric poisoning, ecological damage, rampant genetic mutation, and the constant struggles between armies increasingly polarized between the United Nations' Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod, previous political structures and governments had collapsed. Only the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod had survived the swift and brutal collapse due to their size, military power, and geographically limitless nature, and the Brotherhood's sound defeat in the Second Tiberium War in 2029 had left GDI the sole intact superpower.

As governments fell apart, GDI troops moved in to restore order and rescue those they could reach, but with tiberium's never-ending spread, only so much could be salvaged. The Blue Zones - covering barely twenty percent of the planet's landmass - remained unharmed by Tiberium outbreaks, and it was here that what remained of civilized life and society endured under GDI's close protection. Another fifty percent of the planet was taken up by Yellow Zones, areas ravaged by tiberium and the disease, chaos, and social unrest that it had brought. The Global Defense Initiative held territory in these zones, but those regions were far more dangerous and lawless. Anywhere GDI couldn't impose order, the Brotherhood of Nod crept in and dominated, either openly or from the shadows.

The other thirty percent of the planet were Red Zones, and were inhospitable to baseline organic life. Life was tough in a Yellow Zone, with the chaotic weather patterns, constant civil war, and the ever-present tiberium, but Red Zones were dominated by tiberium, the crystal transforming the landscape into alien expanses of immense green and blue crystal monoliths, with broken ground and raging ion storms amidst the thrashing winds and ferocious, unnatural tiberium-based lifeforms. Nothing human - or at least, nothing _originally _human - could live in a Red Zone, and those Zones slowly expanded every year.

"The Pentagon is just up ahead, sir," Kinsley said, breaking Karrde out of his thoughts, and the Commander looked up to the northwest as they crossed the river. The command center was visible ahead, largely unchanged from its original design, although the modern Pentagon was surrounded by a wide defensive perimeter of concrete walls and automated guard towers. From the highway he could see the power plant complex to the south of the main building, a line of low bunkers with cooling towers holding the generators that fueled the complex. Kinsley maneuvered the Pitbull along a restricted-access road that was used exclusively by GDI traffic, pausing only to show her credentials to the armed checkpoint at the downgrade. GDI soldiers wearing the distinct black armor of the regiment assigned to defend the Pentagon checked over her information and waved them through.

The Pentagon had once been the United States' center of military command, but as the USA had taken a leading role in the First Tiberium War, contributing over thirty percent of the total troops to the Global Defense Initiative, the Pentagon had steadily gone from being an American military center to a GDI operations center, and stayed that way as general social order collapsed in the 21st century.

The Pitbull stopped outside the gates of the Pentagon, under the watchful eyes of dozens of heavily-armed soldiers and a pair of automated railgun towers. The hulking shapes of a squadron of Zone Troopers were visible, clad in heavy powered armor that made them seem twice the size of a human, and holding immense coil-driven railguns that would have been fixed emplacements for normal soldiers.

Scanners rolled over the vehicle, ensuring it had no unusual cargo, and GDI troops circled it, checking with mirrors, hand-held scanners, and guard dogs. Once the vehicle checked out, they waved them through the checkpoint, and Kinsley drove the transport through the gateway and into one of the covered parking garages outside the Pentagon.

"An excellent drive, Sergeant," Karrde offered with a smile, stepping out of the transport and smoothing down his uniform.

"Thank you, sir," the sergeant replied, and Karrde grabbed his bag and started inside, not wanting to be late for his first meeting with General Jack Granger. It wouldn't give a good impression on the boss if the new Battle Commander for Blue Zone Two area was late.

* * *

Rawne had seen Blue Zones before, so he was not terribly impressed with the opulence of the sheep that lived in these areas; all of the shining streets and towering skyscrapers and pristine houses earned from him was scorn. However, he did find himself envious of the limitless green plant life. In the Yellow Zones, open farmland was scarce and overworked, with many of the crops that Nod grew contained in sealed greenhouse complexes. Wild plant life still flourished, but it was often merely scrub and grassland. Here, plants were a luxury made petty by their common nature. The sheep didn't know the wealth they grazed upon.

But what galled Rawne the most was not the opulence or the beauty. It was the _hypocrisy_. All of this wealth and power were built off of exploiting Tiberium, using it to power their industries, supply their raw materials, to substitute for the rare-earth elements to build their advanced technologies. Yet GDI claimed that their objective was to contain and eradicate the sacred crystal to protect humanity from the sickness. Somehow, that didn't stop their armies and crude harvesting vehicles from gathering Tiberium in vast quantities to fuel their economies. At least the Brotherhood had the decency to openly accept the crystal they used to better their lives.

The many forests GDI had planted in the Blue Zones offered the Brotherhood plenty of cover to operate, particularly for the company-sized detachment that was carrying out Rawne's mission. A small clearing for the light, quick Carryalls that would carry their troops was all that was required, and in the middle of the impromptu landing pad was a command tent. The interior was clogged with tables, mobile computers, and communications gear, and Rawne plopped himself down into a plastic folding chair, reviewing the intelligence data on Goddard Space Center. A moment later a shadow appeared at one of the tent's entrances, resolving itself into the form of a tall, muscular man with shoulder-length, dirty blond hair and a short, scraggly mustache and beard. He was clad in nondescript brown and tan fatigues.

"So, you're the one everyone's been talking about?" he asked, grinning, his voice faintly tinged with an Australian accent. "The legendary insurgent. Commander Logan Rawne."

"And you must be Ajay, right?" Rawne replied, and the man nodded.

"Hope you're as good as they say you are, Commander," he remarked sitting down opposite from Rawne. "'cause we're throwing you right in the fryin' pan. Take a look." He turned and tapped a couple of keys on the computer behind him, and the screen lit up, showing aerial views of the military complex two kilometers east of their base. Rawne checked the basic layout: Tall security walls around the main facility, barracks complex on the south side, motor pool on the west, office buildings in the center, and a smaller complex in the north with a single large structure sprouting several communications dishes and heavy security.

"This is Goddard Space Center, just a couple klicks east of Greenbelt, Maryland," he explained, and Rawne nodded, the images matching those on his own Comcom. "Control center for all of GDI's anti-missile capability. You're gonna take a small team and wipe out the entire installation, take it off-line."

The view on the computer shifted to show an antenna farm on the south side of the compound.

"Basic operation plan is simple," Ajay continued, "Take out the communications first so they can't call for help. Then go dynamic and do that _nasty_ thing you do." Judging by Ajay's expression, he looked like he anticipated what was going to happen in the next hour, and his sentiments echoed Rawne's.

"This," Ajay added, pointing the large structure festooned with comms equipment on the north side of the complex, "is the primary target. I've got two squads of Shadows pulled from 902nd Special Operations ready to hit it. They just someone to prep the field."

"Garrison strength?" Rawne asked as he plotted out some details.

"Company-level, maybe four platoons," Ajay replied. "That's the actual armed guard force. Maybe twice that many desk-troopers and civilian contractors. Not much in the way of heavy armor, but they've got some Pitbulls, a couple of Guardians. Mostly fixed-defense orientation with a lot of gun emplacements and automated guard towers. Set up to stop insurgency ops."

"Like this one," Rawne muttered. "Reinforcements? Quick-reaction force?"

"Nearest fast response is station a few kilometers away," Ajay said, pointing to a couple of spots on the map indicating GDI military bases. "Someone hits the panic, we can expect a couple of companies' worth of airmobile to drop in within fifteen minutes in Ox birds and Hammerheads. Battalion-sized response in thirty."

"Which is why taking out that communications facility is a priority," Rawne said with a nod. The response speed shouldn't have surprised him. This was the heart of one of the largest and best-defended Blue Zones on the planet. "We won't be able to stop hardline calls, though. Estimate . . . taking out the comms facility might buy us an extra ten to fifteen minutes?"

"Sounds about right, yeah," Ajay replied with a nod.

"Did Kane say what this mission was for?" Rawne asked, curious, though he knew that taking down GDI's anti-missile defense systems and satellite control network would cause unending problems for the heathens.

"Wish I could tell you what Kane's got planned," Ajay replied with a shake of his head, "but then I'd have to kill you." He paused, and the smile that popped up on the soldier's face told Rawne the truth.

"Just kiddin'. But seriously, I envy you, Brother," he remarked. "World's gonna change, and you're gonna be right there in the thick of it. Its an exciting time to be Nod. If you need me, I'll be here."

"Don't worry, Ajay," Rawne replied, leaning forward. "With the assets I've been given, I doubt I'll need much external help."

"That's good to hear," Ajay said with a grin. "Let's get this party started, huh?"

* * *

Patience was necessary when working in high-level GDI command centers. Paranoia was a healthy mindset when dealing with the Brotherhood. Stringent and redundant security to screen out Nod infiltration meant that Karrde had to wade through at least seven checkpoints between the outermost ring of the Pentagon and the bunker at the core of the building where all of GDI's North American operations were handled. Like most GDI buildings, the blue-gray antiseptic lighting was dominant, and it washed out the coloration of the gray-uniformed personnel moving through the offices and command rooms. A constant low-hum of working computers and continuous beeping of displays and consoles cut under the buzz of conversation from the officers and enlisted. Karrde saw that a number of the displays were uplinks to the _GSS Philadelphia_ and the attached ion cannon and space-to-surface deployment assets, all filtered through the main relay and control network at Goddard.

Karrde had learned to deal with the incessant noise long ago, and it bothered him little as he walked down the corridors and entered the heart of the Pentagon's command center, an inauspicious room nearly a kilometer underground, choked with desks and free-standing monitors on large, skeletal metal frames. The Commander made his way across the gray-walled chamber, weaving around metal desks with working intelligence analysts, and headed for the far end of the of the control room. A single desk was set against a window that looked out over an underground chasm and a series of walkways beyond that led to other areas of the secure underground bunker. Behind the desk was a heavy-set, balding officer with General's stars on his uniform vest.

He was working with scowling intent on his personal laptop as Karrde approached. The Commander paused a few steps away from the desk and went silent, waiting until the General noted his presence. It took a couple of seconds of loitering before the officer noted the man standing in front of his desk.

"Ah, Commander," he said, tapping a button on his laptop and locking it, before rising stepping around the desk. "General Jack Granger, glad to have you on board."

Granger wasted no time with greetings or pleasantries, and didn't bother with salutes or hand gestures. He instead snatched up a small remote and stepped across the room toward one of the display screens, moving with the intentful energy of a man who had a lot to do and not enough time for it all. A video appeared on the screen, showing what looked like a civilian transport truck erupting into flames.

"These are . . . interesting times," Granger remarked, almost to himself, and then glanced back toward Karrde.

"I don't know if you know it yet, but InOps has downgraded Nod's threat level to 'Low.' With Kane apparently dead, Nod has been hit by internal power struggles. Recruitment's down twenty-five percent, and they've abandoned four bases in the last year."

He rattled off the facts with an air of skepticism as he started pacing back around in front of his desk, like a hungry predator that couldn't find any meat.

"The _prediction_ is another decade of peace," Granger added, pausing, and shaking his head. "Me, I don't believe it."

Karrde immediately decided that he liked Granger, because he obviously recognized just how unreliable intelligence tended to be. Not to mention that the Commander found his blunt, direct manner of speaking refreshing. Too many GDI officers were concerned with politics and being "nice" lately. As far as Karrde was concerned, they needed more men like the retired General Cortez, or the legendary commando Captain "Havoc" Parker. Men who had been in the thick of the fighting with Nod and knew what it meant to be soldiers.

"What makes you think that, sir?" Karrde asked, to which Granger shrugged, his rigid uniform vest rising with the motion. It was at that moment that Karrde realized Granger was the only man wearing the low-grade uniform flak vest in the room, as if he was expecting trouble.

Judging by the way he moved and spoke, Karrde suspected that General Jack Granger _always_ expected trouble.

"Well, Nod has always survived through the use of tiberium," Granger replied. "Its like some damn stim drug that they stick in whenever they start hurting, and it pops them right back up on their feet. In twenty-eight years of fighting Nod, there's one thing I can say with absolute certainty, and that's that as long as tiberium is on Earth, Nod is a serious threat. If our intelligence says otherwise, its because Nod wants us to take them off our radar."

Karrde could agree with that, though InOps had been citing the near complete lack of overt terrorist operations by the Brotherhood over the last decade. Even after the First Tiberium War had ended, Nod had remained quite active, and constant clashes had been a fact of life for most of the first third of the 21st century. Not even the temporary truce during the war against that mad artificial intelligence CABAL had dulled the Brotherhood's desire for blood in the years afterward.

"Now, something interesting popped up yesterday," Granger added, walking across the room, back toward the screen. The video of the truck exploding replayed once more. "This was taken in North Carolina. Zone Security stopped what looked like a produce delivery truck yesterday, but it turned out to be a Nod vehicle. Before it could be searched, the driver blew it up, himself along with it. I want you to take some troops down there, see what you can turn up. Hopefully I'm wrong, and this is just a false alarm . . . ."

Granger paused as a woman with Lieutenant's insignia stepped in from behind him and paused beside the General, but he resumed speaking a moment later. Karrde didn't hear much of what he said, as his attention shifted more to the Lieutenant. She was slender, clad in the dark gray uniform of a GDI InOps officer, with long black hair that was slightly past regulation length. What caught the Commander's eyes the most were her features, for she was striking by even the best standards, with Asian features that he suspected to be of Korean origin.

Granger finally noticed that Karrde was distracted by the newcomer, and gestured toward her with some indignation.

"This is Lieutenant Sandra Telfair, InOps," he explained. "Lieutenant, this is Battle Commander Alexander Karrde. Commander, the Lieutenant will give you all the details on the mission. Lieutenant?"

"Thank you," Sandra said, her voice quiet and soft for a military officer. She offered Karrde a welcoming smile as she stepped across the room toward a desk.

"Good afternoon, Commander," she spoke as she settled into her chair, and Karrde took a seat across from her. "Here's what we know so far." With a tap of her keyboard, the screen on the wall shifted, showing a map of the North Carolina region. Karrde's Comcom buzzed as it began downloading a copy of the data. The western end of the former state was highlighted in yellow, with the site of the detonation pinpointed along the border.

"After the delivery truck incident," she explained, "We turned Sky Sentry onto the area. We picked up a high output, sub-terra energy grid in the middle of _nowhere_."

"Nod bunkers," Karrde muttered, and Sandra nodded. The screen shifted to show the levels of energy being emitted by the source, and from what he could tell, it was consistent with large Nod weapons' stores and underground factories. The Brotherhood had a thing for subterranean war factories, and it looked like they had multiple such structures on hand in the area. And having a base this close to a Blue Zone was bad news, no matter how one spun things.

"Obviously, Nod's up to no good," Sandra added, and Karrde nodded. "But there is some good news; your ace in the hole is an old base we have in the region. We abandoned it several years ago, but all indications are that the facility is still intact. Bring it back online and you should be able to recon the entire area." Sandra paused for an instant, her features shifting to reflect concern.

"My advice is to engage the enemy only if necessary; there's no telling what those maniacs are hiding out there."

"I agree," Karrde said quietly. He'd been on the front lines of the Rio Insurrection. He knew what the Brotherhood could manage if they got enough support. This base could be the staging ground for any number of raids or incursions into B-1.

"What kind of units will I have on this operation?" Karrde asked. It was a valid question, considering his rank. Battle Commanders were not assigned to a single unit. They were regional commanders tasked with carrying out vital operations, and used what they had available.

"We've got a few Recon battalions available for deployment," Telfair said, checking her laptop. "Nearest is from the 103rd out of Langley. There is a fully-armed Recon battalion ready. Your liaison should be able to get you any air or orbital support you need for the operation as well."

"What else can you give me about Nod troop movements in the area?" Karrde asked. "Any estimate on enemy force concentration?"

"A base of that size?" Telfair said, frowning. She shook her head. "They could have a couple of heavy battalions in there, underground. Possibly an entire division." She nodded toward his Comcom. "Everything we've gathered over the last few weeks on Nod movements in the Carolinas has been uploaded. It's not much to go with, I'm sorry."

"It'll be enough," Karrde said, standing. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

* * *

One hundred and twenty men were given the task. Kane had sent Brother-Captain Alvarez to the staging area, and he had hand-picked each soldier and martyr personally to carry out the mission. Rawne was glad for his friend's presence; he was not as personable as Jose, and would have had a harder time deciding which men were going to die in Kane's service.

Rawne spent the two hours leading up to the operation meeting with each team leader, discussing the plans and operations for each unit. Guerilla warfare demanded that one operate with limited resources, and make the maximum use out of each unit under one's command. Commander Rawne had a strong, versatile force, though he admitted that he would likely not see many of them again. That was a bloody necessity for this mission: every man had to be devoted and willing to lay his life down for the Brotherhood, as the assault on Goddard Space Center would be a one-way strike into the heart of a Blue Zone.

Roughly half his force were regular soldiers of the Brotherhood: light infantry armed with assault rifles and rocket launchers, wearing flak vests, fatigues, and either hoods or light helmets. They were militia recruited from the vast, disaffected populations of the Yellow Zones, indoctrinated with the Brotherhood's beliefs, and many injected with Tiberium cocktails that were slowly mutating their bodies.

The remainder were much more devoted soldiers who were, in all honesty, suicide bombers. They were laden with heavy Tiberium-based explosive charges, carrying machine pistols to suppress the enemy, and augmented with borderline psychotic fanaticism. They were furiously reading their copies of the sacred texts, reciting litanies, oaths, and prayers as they boarded the transports near the staging area in the woods near Goddard Space Center.

"Were all of us as devoted," remarked Alvarez as he watched the fanatics hurry toward their doom, many of them injecting themselves with Tiberium-based psychoactive drugs. Rawne grunted, nodding. A small part of him envied these men, so pure in their devotion, but the majority of him was far more content to serve the Brotherhood by not killing himself in a blaze of glory. Such fanatics were often recruited from Yellow Zones near the Red Zones: men who had lived so close to Tiberium that it was their very lives, and they had such pathetic existences that the Brotherhood was the only light in their lives. Such simplistic minds were easy to fill with true faith.

Aside from the martyrs, there were a small number of elite Nod commandos: Ajay's Shadow infiltrators, who would be using the chaos of the battle to strike a surgical blow that would cripple the enemy. They were a stiletto, poised and ready to slip in and slice the enemy's throat. Goddard Space Center was well-defended, and it would be up to them to break those defenses.

"Are our troops prepared?" Rawne asked as he walked toward the command tent, and Alvarez nodded. Rawne slipped inside, and sat down next to Ajay, who grinned as he prepared the tactical holographic fields. Rawne slipped his hands over the tactical controls, and Ajay watched intently as the Commander ran over the reports from each of the units preparing their attack and interfaced his Comcom with the display.

"Never seen a Commander like you in action," he remarked. "This is going to be something beautiful."

"You have no idea, Agent," Rawne whispered with a dark smile, anticipating what would happen once they arrived. Kane had something incredible planned, he could feel it, and like Ajay had said, he would be the one to make it all happen.

* * *

"Colt! Quit fiddling with your piece and get over to the muster bay! We got called up!"

Corporal Mitchell Colt glanced up, frowning, and he put away the magazine he had been preparing to vigorously enjoy. Across the room, the intercom squawked and shut off, and he rose, grabbing his fatigues and throwing them on. The words sank into his mind, and his heart began pumping.

It was one thing to be on duty, which for Colt and his fellow recon troopers of the 103rd Recon Division, generally meant sentry duty, paperwork shuffling, and combat drills of every sort imaginable; the kind of dull, repetitive work that made him happy when his company got pulled for zone-patrol duty. But to be "called up" meant that the unit was being scrambled for an actual mission. The 103rd sometimes got called up to scout suspected Nod installations or camp on tib-smugglers or similar duty, but the urgency of the message told him it was something different.

Colt had his pack together and his garrison fatigues on in a matter of minutes. Outside, dozens of additional soldiers were gathering as the whole of Fourth Battalion began mobilizing, over four hundred troops, all told. Half the size of a combat battalion, but they weren't a front line unit and had a small logistics and support wing because of their Recon status. Recon divisions were all eyes and talons and lean muscle. Leave the bloat and heavy support wings to the line units.

There was a brief period of semi-controlled chaos as the milling soldiers flooded out of the barracks complex and hurried across the compound, toward the briefing amphitheater. Fourth Battalion was based at Langley Air Base in Virginia, a few miles from the GDI's InOps Command Center, based out of the old CIA Headquarters. Like the Pentagon, the building and the organization housed within had been absorbed into the greater whole of GDI.

"What's goin' on?" asked PFC Winters, a new trooper fresh out of Basic, who Colt found himself walking beside. He was supposed to be a grenadier, and looked barely in his late teens, with shaved blond hair and bright green eyes.

"Hell if I know," the tall, lanky Colt replied, shrugging. He was darker-skinned, with close-shaved brown hair and dark eyes. "Might have something to do with that truck bombing yesterday down in Carolina."

"You think Nod might be doing something?" Winters asked, his face lighting up, and Colt grinned.

"Whatever it is, and whatever we're doing about it, its got to be better than sentry duty."

The legion of armored, uniformed GDI troops rumbled into the amphitheater, hunting down seats and filling the available space quickly. The room was designed to accommodate close to fifteen hundred men, so the troops of Fourth Battalion had no trouble getting the seats they wanted. Soldiers milled about as they took their seats, the buzz of conversation filling the room as everyone speculated on why they had been so suddenly brought up.

"Battalion! At_ten_tion!"

Every soldier shot to his or her feet as the voice echoed across the room. Colonel Vanes entered. He was a tall, icy-eyed man with the scars of a TW2 veteran and iron-colored, close-cropped hair. The Colonel was followed by his aides, and nodded to the troops as he passed.

"At ease," the bulky, dark-skinned officer called, and the troops returned to their chairs. Vanes took up a position at the center of the amphitheater, behind a metal podium. Large screens mounted on the wall behind his sprang to life, displaying the golden swooping eagle symbol of GDI.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Vanes called, his deep voice booming across the chamber as he spoke. "I apologize for the short notice on this call-up, as I know most of you were off-duty. This is going to be short and quick, as we don't have the time or intel for a detailed brief." He tapped something on the podium, and the symbol behind him shifted to a map of western North Carolina.

"As most of you have seen on the news, there was an incident at a Zone Security checkpoint yesterday morning. A delivery truck was found out to be a Nod vehicle, attempting to smuggle tiberium into East Carolina. Once found out, the driver blew up the truck, killing himself in the process. We've still got sonic teams sweeping the area for any fragments that may have gotten scattered over the area. InOps has confirmed Brotherhood of Nod involvement, and this morning Sky Sentry satellites turned up evidence of a Nod installation in the region. They haven't been able to pin down the extent of the enemy presence yet."

"Typical spook rush job," muttered PFC Lindley, sitting behind Colt, and he nodded. The Corporal leaned forward, interested by the briefing thus far. This looked like the real deal. Were they going to be the lead units into a major raid on Nod? The prospect sent an excited flutter through him.

"Now, for why we're getting involved," Vanes continued. "As of 0900 this morning, Blue Zone Two has a new active Battle Commander. His name is Alexander Karrde, and General Jack Granger wasted no time giving him the job of ferreting out this Nod base. And Commander Karrde wasted no time selecting Fourth Battalion from the 103rd to be the recon unit to find it."

"Man who recognizes talent," Lindley remarked, and Colt suppressed a snicker.

"Maps are being uploaded to your individual officers, who will distribute them and brief you individually," Vanes finished. "Get your gear and weapons together; Karrde himself is leading this operation, and we're lifting as soon as he gets here, which will be in two hours. Dismissed."

Within minutes the amphitheater was emptied, GDI soldiers hurrying back out into the open air, troops quickly gathering into squads and platoons around their officers. The air was filled with the murmur of conversation and shouted orders, superiors barking commands to their troops as they assembled over the roar of distant aircraft engines. Colt hurried toward where C Company was gathering, and joined up with his squadmates in Third Platoon. Lieutenant Magrabi was pulling the platoon together, and once the myriad of troopers was assembled, he nodded.

"Okay, platoon," the olive-skinned officer called, looking over his troops. "Maps are being uploaded as we speak. The new BC hasn't given us individual assignments yet, since this is a pretty sudden mobilization, so he's leaving company and platoon ops to the individual officers. C Company is going to be on point for this operation, with the rest of the battalion following. We'll be reconnoitering, so we're going in on foot, with the rest of the troops coming up behind us in APCs and Pitbulls. Understand." A chorus of acknowledgements sounded form the platoon, and Magrabi nodded. He checked his datapad, and hit a few keys.

"Maps have been distributed to you personal pads," he explained. "The battle plan is pretty simple. We're going in, sweeping this town here, Ginger Creek, and then we'll move west on Camp Branson, an old base we abandoned about five years ago. We're to secure the base and use it as a stepping stone to recon the area. From then on, its up to the BC."

He looked up at the troops of Third Platoon, pausing for a moment, and put his datapad away.

"Get your kits and gear together, and report to the armory and gear up for for a heavy loadout. We don't know what we're going to find, so arm yourselves appropriately. Dismissed!"

* * *

"Brothers!" came the call from the man walking up and down the troop bay, his red cape flying out behind his as he strode past the righteous warriors of the Brotherhood. "Today is a day of glory for Nod! Our beloved messiah, your grand, benevolent shepherd Kane, has seen far in his wide vision, and in that vision, he has laid out our purpose!"

"One Vision!" shouted the soldiers lining the troop bay, clenching their weapons in tight fingers. "One Purpose!"

"Each of you has been specially chosen," Confessor Nicholas declared, striding around the bay, looking at the men as the Carryall's engines began to activate, gesturing and pointing. "Each of you were selected for this task, for in your heart beats the ferocious, undying spirit of the Brotherhood itself! Within each and every one of you is a part of Kane's plan, and he knows - he trusts - that you will carry it out, unto death if need be!"

"His will moves with us!" the soldiers shouted, and the priest smiled. Nicholas was a master at his tradecraft; as a Confessor of the Black Hand, his skills at manipulation, inspiration, and intimidation were formidable, only surpassed by his faith in the Brotherhood and its divine mission.

"Remember the names of your ancestors, the Brothers and Sisters who fought and died since the very founding of our sacred order," the Confessor whispered. "The countless millions who have bled and given their lives and their souls for the Prophet's vision of the future. Our Tiberium future. Remember their names, for in them lies our past, and thus, that past is your own. Brotherhood. Peace. _Unity_."

"Brotherhood," the men and women chanted in unison. "Peace. _Unity!"_

"Today, we strike a righteous blow in the name of the Brotherhood of Nod!" Confessor Nicholas declared, clenching his fist. "We shall drive forth, deep into the heart of our enemy, and cut it out! The heathens will know of our names as we smear the heavens with their blood! We shall show them the might of the Brotherhood, and they will fall before us!"

"Peace Through Power!" the furious warriors of Nod shouted, and the Confessor's smile grew.

"Ascension awaits all who serve with faith," he finished. "Meditate on your coming glory, and serve with honor in the coming hours. The future is ours; me must merely reach out and _take it _from the dead fingers of those that would oppress us."

Beneath the transport, the ground began to drop away as the aircraft lifted off, carrying the warriors of Nod toward Goddard Space Center, and their glorious destiny, every soldier and fanatic cheering with frenzied glee as they awaited the moment they would meet the enemy and strike him down with their vengeance.

* * *

The armory door hissed open, and Sergeant Galladon stepped into the room. The walls were lined with weapons: GD2 assault rifles in racks on either side. GDM-12 squad-support machineguns on shelves further back, and a special rack holding a set of GSL-70 sniper rifles. FGM-90 missile launchers were secured behind a second locked door further back, and Galladon set about unlocking that as his two assistants started grabbing rifles off the wall racks and handing them to soldiers further back.

Corporal Colt took his GD2 and checked the weapon as he moved out of the way of his fellows within the armory. Once his inspection was done, he began gathering ammunition from another of the armory Sergeant's assistants, a blocky-face, surly youth identified as PFC Allen.

"You got any idea what's going on out there?" asked another soldier as he stood beside Colt, doing the same inspection. His tags marked him as Specialist Amin, an assaulter from A Company.

"No idea, man," Colt replied, annoyed. That was the fifth time someone had asked him that exact same question.

"News this morning said the threat got downgraded to Low," Amin grunted as he started donning his armor. Ceramic trauma plates fitted over a ballistic vest underneath, followed by spaulders, elbow and kneepads, and forearm plates. Thigh plates and snap-on shin armor over their boots followed. It was heavier gear than their predecessors in TW1 and TW2 wore, but the world was a scary place, and they still didn't have the fully-body armor that the Armored Fist troopers in B Company had to don, let alone the powered-armor of A Company's Zone platoon. "Check me, man?"

"Yeah," Colt grunted, and Amin turned around. Colt ran over the trooper's straps and gear, making sure his armor was properly fitted. "Look, got no news beyond what the Colonel gave us at the brief. You're good, bro."

"Shit, yeah, but still," Amin said. Colt turned and the Specialist checked his plating and load-bearing gear. "Thought you C Company guys might have heard something else."

Colt shook his head. Recon had a mystique to it, and among recon battalions, the scouting company got even more of a spooky reputation, especially the old veterans. Everyone assumed that the scouts knew things the rifle and armored companies didn't.

"You know as much as we do, which is shit and nil," Colt said. "I hear something beyond "Bad guys, go find 'em,' I'll tell you."

"You're cool," Amin said as he finished. "Just checking, man. Thanks."

"You know anything about this new BC?" Colt asked, turning back to his pack and loading spare ammunition and water into it, along with his other gear.

"Good man, says the Captain," Amin replied. "Hero some say. Fought in Rio back in '34 when the city went to hell. Heard he managed to hold off a whole company of tib-heads to help cover the pullout when the main offices got torched. Just transferred from Japan yesterday."

Colt grunted, nodding.

"Come on, we gotta get out to the pad and wait for the flyboys to get the Oxen ready," Colt added. "Maybe one of these other guys heard something about this mission."

"Entire goddamned underground base," Amin said, grabbing his helmet. "That's what I signed on for!"

"Preach it," Colt said with a grin as he strapped on his own helmet.

* * *

The dull, bone-shaking growl of rumbling and whining aircraft engines spread out across the airfield, shaking everything that wasn't properly secured. Men and women rushed about, many clad in the jumpsuits and fatigues of airmen and ground crew, preparing the transports for takeoff, shouting over the blasting reports of the ready aircraft. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes were moving across the tarmac, ranging from fuel transports and munitions carts to a few straggling Pitbulls and heavy, elongated armored personnel carriers, being swiftly loaded onto the waiting V-35 Ox transports. Armored soldiers, many of them security personnel at the airbase, were hurrying around, and several were stomping up the transports' ramps as the final preparations for takeoff were underway.

For Alexander Karrde, the chaos and noise felt like home.

The idling engines of the Ox transport shook Karrde's bones, blasting heat from the thrusters washing over the asphalt and he bounded up the boarding ramp into the dagger-shaped aircraft's belly. His boots rang on the metal as he walked up the steps, clad in fresh brown fatigues underneath a flak vest of the same color, with a visored helmet on his head. Images and data played across his eyes as his EVA unit kept him appraised of the local situation. A hand reached out, belonging to an armored figure whose IFF codes identified him as a "Major Koen."

Commander Karrde's hand closed around the wrist of Major Koen's hand as he climbed onto the V-35 Ox transport. The Major's grip was solid and his shake strong, which spoke of the confidence his thirty-five years had ingrained into him. Only a few years older than Karrde himself, the Major was slight but powerfully built, born and bred in B-7.

"Fourth Battalion is waiting for you, Commander," he said with a tight smile, gesturing into the Ox. Karrde walked inside the passenger bay, where a hundred soldiers were strapped in, their weapons and gear stowed at their feet as they lined the sides of the transport. They all regarded him with mixed expressions, the troops ranging from young Privates and PFCs fresh out of boot camp, barely out of their teens at best, to a few grizzled Sergeants and higher-ups that were older than Karrde and had the scars to match. Though Nod hadn't been terribly active over the last few years, mutant raiders, rioting Yellow Zone citizens, and various peacekeeping actions had kept GDI's troops busy enough.

Karrde didn't bother going for one of the seats at the front, where the company officers were sitting, but instead picked out a vacant seat among the regular troops. A few of the troops raised surprised eyebrows at this as the Commander sat down among his men. Though policy frowned on it, Alexander Karrde made it a point to familiarize himself with the soldiers as much as possible, as he had to earn their trust; he would be personally directing these men and women in the field, and he had to trust them to do exactly as he ordered them to do.

The Ox shuddered as its engines powered up, Koen sitting himself down in the officers' seating at the head of the transport. Karrde patched himself into the battalion channel on his radio as the V-35, with three more of its brothers, lifted off from the airfield at Andrews, ferrying the whole battalion toward its destination. Knowing the speed of the transports, he expected to be at the drop zone in under half an hour.

"Okay, Fourth Battalion," Karrde called over the radio. "This is Battle Commander Karrde. You boys and girls have been selected for a mission of the utmost importance."

"That being?" called a random soldier over the radio, who was shushed by another half a second later.

"Agents of the Brotherhood of Nod have snuck into the GDI Admin Building," Karrde stated, his voice dead serious, "and made off with an armful of Director Kinsburg's underwear. We're here to locate the old bag's panties and bring 'em back." Laughter echoed over the comm from the troops.

"We're dropping in two klicks out from Camp Branson, in North Carolina, Yellow Zone Three, Grid 229," Karrde continued after the laughter subsided. "We're going to secure the base and recon the area. Sky Sentry has gotten us word that we've got some serious underground energy signatures, fitting the profile of a Nod base. Probably going to be pretty well-hidden, so we're going to have to ferret it out with eyes on the ground."

"There gonna be indigs or shiners?" called another soldier over the radio, whose callsign identified him as Corporal Mitchell Colt. His accent spoke of a New jersey upbringing, which meant he was probably born in a Blue Zone.

"Area looks abandoned," Karrde replied, bring up the intelligence reports. A tap on his Comcom had EVA distributing the maps to the entire battalion. "No sign of civilian habitation in the area, nor any sign of mutant presence."

Excepting, of course, the giant underground power grid, but he didn't need to say that.

"This area is under GDI jurisdiction, though," Koen called over the radio. "Keep your fingers off your triggers, as there's a possibility of local militia or police friendlies in the area."

"Not if Nod's running the show," called another trooper, a woman named PFC Lindley.

"Copy that," Karrde replied. "Watch for tib-scars or scorpion tails. Also, keep an eye out for M-16 Mark IIs. Most of the civil militia and police in Carolina are packing GD2s, so if you see someone carrying a Mark II, he's probably got it illegally."

The troops around the bay nodded; the M-16 Mark II was the weapon of choice for both GDI and Nod in the Second Tiberium War, and literally hundreds of millions had been manufactured, and were still being made. The weapon was now ubiquitous amongst Nod forces, and GDI made a point of issuing their standard GD2s among their own people to differentiate.

"C Company will advance on the base after we drop," Karrde continued. "A, B, and D will hold position at the LZ until we've secured Camp Branson, and then move up. From there, we recon the region until we find out how many tib-heads are camping out."

"Then what?" asked Corporal Colt.

"Then we make the choice between calling in Orcas or an Ion Cannon," Karrde replied with a grin, and it was reflected in every soldier's face.

* * *

Kane stood at the stained glass window, peering out across the landscape of the land that had once been Sarajevo. For kilometer after kilometer, there was nothing but the twisting, jagged, and vaulting architecture of the Brotherhood of Nod. Multiple layers of immense walls, topped with laser towers and missile emplacements and manned by legions of Brotherhood soldiers. Long, blocky barracks and housing complexes topped by angular observation towers and balconies, where even more warriors and workers resided. The spiked, flower-like shrines that glowed with Tiberium incense burners, where the Brothers and Sisters gathered to pray and worship, amidst the dome-like Hands of Nod, with tall, hand-shaped towers gripping globes that symbolized the Brotherhood's place in this world. Other structures, ranging from tall air towers buzzing with aircraft lifting from their high launch pads, to squat, deeply-buried factories and armories filled the city-scale complex. All of it was contained within the immense walls, and the outer perimeter of the city was defined by missile emplacements, concealed bunkers, and the towering, gleaming forms of the Obelisks of Light, the mightiest weapons of the Brotherhood.

Below he could see the teeming masses of Brothers and Sisters hurrying about the city, which was built within an immense crater gouged out of the earth half a century ago. Fields of glittering green could be seen scattered throughout the complex, with specially armored transports moving through them. Long, sinuous mechanical arms reached out and scooped the crystals into the vehicles. These fields of sacred Tiberium were tended like organic farms and heavily guarded by Nod troops. The unearthly glow of the radiant, evolving substance bathed the harvesting crews as they gathered it to be refined into the energy and materials they would need to continue growth.

Footsteps resounded in the empty chamber behind him, and he turned, recognizing the one approaching simply by her gait and bearing. She was tall, slender, with ageless features and regal beauty, but without regal arrogance. He bearing and gait were confident and controlled, and wore a simple, body-hugging black uniform with no ornamentation; like the mightiest of kings and queens, she had no need to display her power.

"Kilian," Kane spoke with a magnanimous smile as his second in command entered the chamber, the doors sliding shut behind her. A slight charge of electricity touched the air as the anti-surveillance countermeasures kicked in. "No ill news, I hope."

"None to report. The facility in Cairo is on standby," General Kilian Qatar explained, pausing next to Kane. Few had earned the right to be so close to Kane, especially after the last few betrayals he had faced. Seth, Hassan, Marcion...

"And our troops stationed across the globe?" Kane asked, moving toward one of the obelisks in the room, displaying encrypted data from Y-8, China. "I assume there are no complications."

"None worth noting," Kilian replied. "Minor operational issues, but those are being handled locally, and none are impeding the overall battleplan. They await the signal to move."

Kane nodded, looking back toward her. Killian had handled most of the operational deployments while Kane had focused on the greater issues of technology, spirituality, and long-term goals. She had filled a hole in his ranks left by Anton Slavik's death, and much of what he had planned would have been difficult - if not impossible - without her.

"Then it shall all wait on Commander Rawne's successful mission in Maryland," he said.

"Indeed," Kilian said, but then she paused. Kane noted her hesitation, and frowned.

"What concerns you?" he asked. Kilian was silent for a moment, hesitant to voice her

concerns right away.

"What if the mission fails?" she asked. "If we falter at Goddard, what will happen next? I know that the operation is paramount to allowing us the surprise we'll need to carry out the opening stages, but . . . it seems foolish to risk all of our assets on a mission that could go wrong so easily. If Goddard does not fall, GDI's Ion Cannons . . . ."

"Are irrelevant," Kane replied with a smile. "Relax, Kilian. I have planned for every contingency. More importantly, I have absolute faith in Commander Rawne's capabilities, especially in light of the staggering incompetence of GDI basing all of its satellite control systems in one base. Even if the mission somehow fails, it will mean nothing. Your planning has ensured that we can withdraw our troops and melt away into the Yellow Zones without anyone ever knowing we were there. We have the initiative, just as we always have had in the past; we can pick and choose our battles when and where we wish."

Kane gestured toward the obelisk behind him.

"GDI has no inkling of what will happen in the coming hours. When the storm crashes down upon them, they shall be swept aside, leaves in the face of a righteous hurricane of holy vengeance. The rivers will run red with the blood of those who oppose us, Kilian; of this I _promise_ you."

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_When dealing with any story on the scale of the kind you're looking at with Tiberium Wars, things are going to get . . . cluttered. To properly convey the feeling of a world war, one needs to hit things from multiple angles, and tell the story from a multitude of perspectives. Karrde and Rawne are going to be primary characters, and there are going to be a number of recurring GDI and Nod characters as well, as well as short vignettes involving individual troops from both sides, showing other elements of the war from other directions.

**Annotations: **When first writing this chapter, I was still getting a real feel for how to write each faction. Original version felt like I was coming off a bit too strong on Nod being the religious crazies. Admittedly, that's true, because of all the mutation and violence and suicide bombings and so on. I toned it down a bit in the rewrite, not so much in terms of action but phrasing and how characters interact.

Other changes I made to this chapter included some general phrasing changes as well as expanding on both sides' briefings, taking into account some important questions any good officer would want clarified. I also added a short but additional scene in the GDI armory, which served a lot of smaller functions to improve the whole chapter. Lastly, I changed up some dialogue for Kane and Kilian. I felt she was a bit too sexualized in my previous version, and the dialogue between them was a bit too cliched foreshadowing villainy. There also wasn't much definition of Kilian's role in the Brotherhood beyond being Kane's second in command, so i wanted to emphasize their different purposes: Kane being the great leader who sets policy and serves as the center of the cult of personality, with Kilian being the workhorse who handles combat operations. The changes were minor overall, but I think they worked out better for the tone of the overall story.

Until next chapter . . . .


	3. Chapter II: Reconnoiter

_**Chapter II: Reconnoiter**_

_"Hell no, we didn't see it coming. The Directors, the Generals . . . hell, I don't think Nod really knew what was about to happen, until the whole world got set on fire."_

_-Corporal Mitchell Colt, GDI 103rd Recon Division_

"C Company, we're dropping in ten!" Major Koen's voice resounded in everyone's ears as the soldiers hefted their rifles. "Stand by for release in three . . . Two . . . One . . . ."

The restraints keeping the GDI troops in their crash seats clicked and slid off, and the troops rose. The growl of the Ox's engines exploded through the troop bay as loading ramps on all sides of the room hissed and slid down, followed an instant later by the V-35 touching the dirt. Boots rang on the metal grating as a hundred GDI soldiers stormed off the transport, sweeping the area outside the Ox as they hurried back out into the open air.

Dust swirled past them as C Company disembarked, pounding down the onto the brown, barren soil of the North Carolina badlands. Within thirty seconds the entire transport was clear. Crumbling buildings surrounded them, the low-density commercial and residential housing of a town that had been abandoned for years. It had been known as Ginger Creek back when people actually lived there, but the town had sprung up to service Camp Branson, and once the base was abandoned about five years back, the town had dried up alongside it. Now it was as empty and desolate as the rest of the Carolina Badlands.

The troopers advanced, rifles up, their drab brown and gray Yellow Zone camouflage blending in with the equally drab landscape. Dust whipped past as C Company's Ox lifted off, heading back to the general LZ for the rest of the battalion, while the other transports deployed their troops and then idled.

Each of the four companies of Fourth Battalion had a specific role, though they all played a part in the battalion's general recon duties. A Company was a heavily-armed infantry force, where most of the battalion's heavy weapons, including their mortars, missile launchers, and railgun-equipped Zone Troopers were placed. B Company served as the mechanized transport force, piloting and operating the battalion's complement of Pitbulls, APCs, and transport trucks. D Company served as the battalion's support wing, with the mechanics, logistics, communications, and similar support troops. C Company were the dedicated scouts and pathfinders, a light infantry group whose specialty was stealthy advancement and reconnoiter.

The four platoons of C Company spread out, sweeping through the buildings, and Karrde advanced with them, a GD2 in hand as he followed the first platoon. The recon troopers of the 103rd were almost invisible among the buildings, moving like ghosts, sliding through the yellow grass and amongst the empty facades. Karrde had to check his Comcom to even keep track of all his men as they advanced, and the Battle Commander opted to hang back behind the main advance, so as not to potentially reveal the rest of the unit with his markedly inferior stealth training.

Twenty minutes passed as they swept through Ginger Creek, and the short, terse responses from the troopers told him that they were the only breathing humans in the area. Once the town's outer areas were cleared, Karrde called up the rest of the battalion, and C Company advanced along the road leading out of the urban area, heading east toward Camp Branson. GDI recon doctrine called for the scout elements of any force to draw the main force forward, rather than have the scouts pushed forward by the core of the army.

Another twenty minutes passed as they cut along the side of the road, floating through the grass, until the troops caught sight of the low walls and watchtowers of the base's perimeter, all of which bore the normal signs of long-term abandonment.

"Okay, Commander," Major Koen asked as they came to a halt outside the base. "How are we doing this?"

"You guys are the scouts," Karrde replied. Koen hesitated, and then nodded, understanding what the Commander meant by that. Karrde firmly believed that even though he was the oveall commander, his men knew how to do their jobs best.

"First and Fourth," he hissed into his comm, "move toward the front entrance and hold position outside the walls. Second Platoon, move north around the base; there's what looks like a gap in the walls along the river line. Hold position outside the walls until I give the order. Third Platoon, move into those hills on the south side of the base and reconnoiter."

Acknowledgements filled the radio as the troops glided across the grass, with Major Koen and Commander Karrde following after the two platoons advancing on the gates. Long moments passed as they dropped into the grass, staying virtually invisible along the approach to Branson, and waited for the reports from the rest of the unit.

* * *

Third Platoon moved unseen through the rocks and up the inclines toward the top of the hills, as ordered. Squads moved in fireteams, three-man units covering one another as they slipped head, with the lead teams pausing once they reached appropriate cover and scanning the hills around them for possible sentries. None showed themselves, and forty soldiers advanced through the rocks and broken landscape like ghosts, spread out over a quarter of a kilometer and making barely a whisper of motion. Each man and woman was balanced, mobile, and utterly soundless.

Mitchell Colt advanced as part of the second fireteam of Bravo Squad, his rifle shouldered as he slipped through the rocks. Over the last five minutes they had advanced, unseen and unheard, and were reaching the top of the blank brown hills. Though he had served in the Yellow Zones before, the stark difference between his home in the Blue Zones and these blasted lands always struck him profoundly. How anyone could live in places like this, rank with the infestation of Tiberium, he couldn't understand, but the devastation on the landscape that it had left was self-evident. Every visit to a Yellow Zone reminded Colt of why he had joined GDI, to do his part to prevent his home from ever falling to this state of decay and disrepair.

"Ridge secured," came a call over the radio from Sergeant Banks, who was leading Charlie Squad. "Sound off as you hit the top."

"Copy," Mitchell replied as he reached the top of the hill he was ascending. He dropped to the dirt, brown streaks mixing with his armor. "Colt, Bravo Squad has the top. We have a good view on the base." Below, Colt could indeed see the structures of Camp Branson, sitting along the banks of a wide river whose name he wouldn't remember. Though some of the paint was faded, and the buildings had seen better days, the various support facilities for the old base were still intact. GDI had packed up and removed the more sensitive technologies, but the old Tiberium refinery, the power plant, and the communications array had been left behind, ostensibly to serve Ginger Creek's inhabitants. The entire base was ringed by a wall about twice a man's height, with high watchtowers rising over the complex, guarding the approaches into the base.

"Golf One, in position," came one of the sniper teams as the pair reached the top of the ridge. "I have good LOS on the base."

"Movement down there?" Lieutenant Magrabi asked. There was a pause.

"Confirm movement," Golf One replied, his voice tensing. "I have at least a two squads worth of unidentified down there. No standard uniform . . . I'm seeing lots of fatigues and webbing and camouflage, but no uniforms or patches. They're carrying Mark IIs, and I'm seeing at least two RPG-43s. Several civilian vehicles, transport trucks, on east side of base. They're all gathered around the comms center. No perimeter patrols."

"Copy that," Magrabi replied. "Commander, do you read?"

"I got it," came the reply from Commander Karrde. "EVA is updating all squad interfaces with new intel. From the visual feed, looks like indig militia, but those Mark II rifles make them as either Nod or some unauthorized militant force."

"Delta Squad, east side of the ridge is secured," came a call from Corporal Evans. As the rest of Third Platoon finished reporting in, Evans came back over the radio. "Lieutenant, we've got what looks like a loose Tib-field over here."

"Repeat that," Lieutenant Magrabi replied, and Evans confirmed it.

"We're looking at roughly half a kilometer diameter Tiberium field, about a klick south of the base, sir," Evan reported. Colt frowned, even as Magrabi patched Evans' visual pickup into the platoon-wide channel. Sure enough, a short distance from the base of the hills there was what looked like an open, earthy sore in the earth, filled with oozing green crystal, the air above sparking with discharged ions amidst a low, verdant mist that hung over the rupture. All around it the ground gleamed with an unnatural light as crystal formations the size of a man and taller poked up from the ground, rooted in yellow-green cracks in the soil as it erupted from the dirt.

"Patching this to the BC, stand by," Magrabi called over the radio.

"Tib-tower capping is SOP for abandoned Tiberium fields, isn't it?" Private Falks muttered from beside Colt, and the corporal nodded. When GDI encountered growing Tiberium fields like this one, literally springing from ruptures caused by underground deposits bursting into the surface, standard procedure was to isolate the field with sonic fences, harvest all of the Tiberium until it was cleared around the rupture, and then cap it with a Tiberium silo, upon which was built an automated tower that steadily cleared the crystal away and kept it in check. Half the reason the Blue Zones were still relatively free of Tiberium infestation was the "clear-and-cap" methodology used whenever a rupture took place, and that method was also used when Yellow Zone bases were abandoned and the nearby Tiberium fields wouldn't be used to maintain the base any longer.

"Okay, people," Battle Commander Karrde popped in over the radio. "EVA reports that Branson did cap that rupture when it was abandoned. Tiberium field size indicates that the thing was reopened only a few weeks ago. No indig militia is stupid enough to pop a Tib-hole unless they're Noddies or working with them. We're retaking this base. Treat anyone armed in there as a hostile.

"First and Fourth Platoons, we're going straight in. Second Platoon, I need you to enter the base from the north and position yourselves around the east side of the power plant and flank the Noddies. Cut them off if they try to run. Third Platoon, covering fire from the north ridge. Snipers, priority on RPGs, comms, and officers. Second Platoon, advance to flanking position now. All platoons, assault on my mark."

Colt gripped his rifle tightly, and felt tension shoot through the air as the members of Third Platoon prepared themselves for the order to fire. He'd spied on the enemy before, but this was the first time the Corporal would actually be firing his weapon in combat. In fact, this would be the first time for many of his unit. He ensured his rifle was pressed snugly against his shoulder and sighted toward the base below; at this range, the enemy were nothing but small, drab figures moving about the asphalt of the base, barely visible without activating the magnification of his helmet.

* * *

Cale Winters was up and running the moment the order came, gripping his grenade launcher with iron fingers. The PFC hurried across the thick brown grass and dirt as they scrambled through the gaps in the walls on the north side of the base, and within seconds his boots were hitting asphalt. The troops of Second Platoon did not slow, but instead hurried along the north edge of the base, along the river line and out of sight of the enemy. One squad kept its weapons turned to the south side of the base at all times as they moved, to cover the rest of the platoon as it advanced.

The wide, flattened dome of the power plant rose up to the south as Second Platoon neared its objective, the weathered building humming with energy that it shouldn't have been generating. Whoever had taken over this base was apparently trying to bring it back online. The troops crouched next to the dome, weapons out, and signaled that they had reached their objective. Just to the south, in the center of the compound, the vehicles the enemy militia had used to arrive were in sight.

In the following seconds, PFC Winters tried to still his breathing, and performed a ritual checking of his grenade launcher. The drum-loaded weapon was based off the grenade launchers used in the First Tiberium War in 1997, and was highly versatile, able to fire the high-tech, rocket-propelled grenades that were one of GDI's staple weapons, along with an assortment of other munitions. Winters also carried a variety of hand grenades, and even a few of the disc-style grenades from TW2, for long-distance throws.

"Second Platoon," came the voice of Lieutenant Michels, his voice tense as he crouched with his rifle in hand. "Stand by."

Winters found his hands shaking in anticipation. His first deployment two weeks out of battle school was an assault on a Nod-occupied GDI outpost. They never mentioned _this_ happening at the recruitment center.

* * *

"Golf One, I have a clear line of sight on RPGs," Sergeant Havers whispered into his radio, his scope settled on one of the two soldiers carrying an RPG-43. Golf Two, forty meters down the ridge, was tracking the second one, and echoed Havers' words. The enemy missile launchers were shaped like traditional rocket launchers, with a forward mounted warhead, but featured a second rocket on a lug just underneath the first one. A man with proper training could fire the first, grab the second off its mount, and fire again in a couple of seconds, making it an excellent weapon for ambushes and surprise attacks. Naturally, Nod _loved_ the damn thing.

Havers kept his sights centered on the militiaman's upper chest, just above the collarbone. The man was heavyset, with a day-old beard and thick mustache adorning a round face. He was sitting on a supply crate, looking around aimlessly, like the rest of the small force occupying the base. As Havers watched, the man was talking with one of his comrades, grinning as a joke was exchanged between them. The man's friend handed him what looked like a cylinder of cigarettes, and he set his weapon down to light one up.

"Mark."

Havers let out his breath, and as his heart relaxed between beats, he depressed the trigger.

There was sound, there was recoil, and the cigarette went into the air as the bearded soldier's head was blasted off his shoulders, his neck and upper torso pulverized by the impact.

_That thing was going to kill him anyway,_ Havers thought off-handed as he shifted his aim, even as the second RPG soldier was decapitated by Golf Two.

"RPGs down," Havers remarked tonelessly into the radio as his sights settled over the chest of a shocked militiaman. That chest erupted as another heavy discarding sabot round liquefied his lungs and reduced his heart to bloody vapor. The sergeant didn't even hear the recoil, as the entire ridge exploded with volleys of gunfire as Third Platoon opened up. At this range, it would be a challenge to hit any of the moving, running targets below with GD2 rifles, but that wasn't the point.

Havers picked another target and fired, his shot hitting the man in the left shoulder and tearing his arm completely off. He reported the kill as the other three platoons swept into the base, catching the entire militia force in a brutally precise pincer, even as they were trying to find where the sudden rain of gunfire was coming from.

* * *

Gunfire was pouring down from Third Platoon's position, and the collected militiamen were scattering, caught off-guard by the sudden attack, some diving for cover, others returning fire wildly in the general direction of the hills. None of them were covering the west entrance to the base, however, and First and Fourth Platoons were inside the gates before anyone knew they were there. GDI soldiers in full battle armor swept into the base, taking cover behind barrels, crates, civilian vehicles, and the corners of buildings, with rifle and grenade squads breaking off and circling around the comms center and Tiberium refinery to gain flanking positions on the surprised militia.

The first warning the enemy got that there were GDI forces inside the perimeter was when the two platoons opened up with a storm of simultaneous rifle and grenade fire. In the first volley, half the surviving militia were cut down, precision arcs of gunfire and grenades ripping them apart as they tried to return fire on Third Platoon. The survivors were still trying to cope with the sudden shock and sheer amount of firepower they were facing as the GDI troops relentlessly cut them down. Outnumbered, outgunned, and flanked from multiple directions, the panicked enemy began to retreat toward the transport vehicles on the east side of the base.

Karrde spotted the retreat, and his fingers moved over his Comcom as he ducked behind cover. In an instant, he had brought up Second Platoon, and highlighted the transport vehicles, marking them as a priority. The Comcom vibrated faintly as Karrde's EVA translated the commands into targets for the troops.

* * *

"Echo, on the transports!"

The orders hit PFC Winters even as he was up and moving, and on his helmet's HUD, the cluster of civilian transport vehicles was highlighted, a red priority target circle playing over them. The report of gunfire filled Winters' ears as his muscles reacted, the drilled movements that had been hammered into him in battle school surging up, seizing his muscles as his cognitive brain was still trying to catch up. He dropped to one knee, the other three members of Echo Squad doing the same, and he shouldered the grenade launcher. The transports came up on his helmets' reticule, syncing up with the sight on his grenade launcher, and targeting data, firing arcs, and flight angles popped up on his HUD.

Without thinking, Winters found his aim adjusting to place the red circle directly at the center of all of that data, and he pulled the trigger.

The grenade launcher kicked hard, and an explosive jetted out the barrel, rocket propellant igniting as the warhead activated, lancing toward the target vehicles in a lazy, low arc across the asphalt. A second pull sent another grenade out at a slightly different angle, and it was joined by a volley of additional grenades as Winters' squadmates laid down a swift, deadly barrage.

The explosives hit the transports, detonating on impact, touching off fuel tanks in incandescent fireballs of ripping shrapnel and blazing heat. The enemy closest to the trucks were caught in the detonations, ripped asunder, and those further away came up short, watching in horror as their escape was cut off.

Alexander Karrde saw the moment of opportunity, and he issued an immediate order through his Comcom to hold fire to all of his men.

"Throw down your weapons!" came his amplified voice, echoing across the base as he spoke through his helmet. "Put your hands over your heads!"

The half-dozen surviving militiamen hesitated, caught in the center of the base, surrounded on all sides by GDI troops who had seemingly leapt from nowhere. Ten rifles covered every man, and judging by their expressions, they knew just how doomed they were, and how hopeless the situation was. The rifles started to droop.

On the ridge, Mitchell Colt watched, his fingers tense and his body locked up tightly as he watched the scene below. Nearby, Sergeant Havers and his spotter were calm and relaxed, as veteran snipers had to be. Below, Cale Winters gripped his launcher tightly, breathing in short, quick gasps of tension. Commander Karrde watched and waited, quietly hoping that the enemy would develop some measure of sense.

One of the militants stood stock still,a nd then his mouth opened.

"In the name of _Kane_!"

The militants suddenly raised their weapons, aiming them at the GDI soldiers, the scream of defiance filling the air. Karrde didn't issue fire orders; he had no time and the GDI soldiers needed none.

_"Kane lives in-"_ came the answering shout from the rest of the militants, but it was cut off as a hundred rifles were unleashed. A militiaman was torn almost in half by a sniper round to the gut, and a grenade evaporated two of them into a fine mist. Blood flew, bullets ripped, and bodies fell to the pavement.

Silence spread over Camp Branson as the GDI soldiers finished their work, and Commander Karrde let out a quiet breath.

"EVA, signal the rest of Fourth Battalion," he ordered. "Camp Branson is secure."

* * *

The next half hour was a blur of orders, reports, updates, findings, and fresh information. Karrde let Major Koen handle all of the grunt-related work, and the officer did it well; D Company set about getting the base back up to functional status, with the comms system being used to gain a secure uplink with GDI Central Command at the Pentagon and the Tiberium refinery brought back online. A couple of the company engineers found and reactivated the refinery's harvester, and set it on automatic mining duties; a proper mining and engineering crew would be sent eventually, but in the meantime the automated harvester would bring in enough materials that they could fabricate proper repairs for the base facilities and walls. The long trapezoid shapes of prefabricated barracks facilities were being raised inside the base as well, along with the initial high-rising, slanted forms of automated, railgun-equipped guard towers.

A and B companies had been set up as perimeter defense, and squads from C Company were patrolling the badlands around the base; Karrde had made it clear he didn't want Nod to pull the same thing they'd dropped on the complacent guards at Branson.

The battalion medical officers had done autopsies on what was left of the guards, and had confirmed Karrde's suspicions; several of them had scorpion tail tattoos, and more than one of the dead had one of the strange Tiberium-weave grafts in their bodies that symbolized their devotion to the cause. There was no doubt that they were dealing with a Nod force in the area.

Karrde made his report an hour after they had taken the base, and General Granger received it personally. Karrde was checking the perimeter patrols with EVA when Granger called back mere minutes later, a deep frown creasing a face already too worn by worry.

"Sky Sentry is still not giving us a clear picture on what we're dealing with out there," Granger remarked as soon as his face appeared on the screen in the comms center. "But if that was a Nod patrol you dealt with, they'll likely be aware of your presence sooner or later, and we need to know what's out there." Judging by the look on his face, Karrde knew what Granger was expecting.

"Sir, I'm guessing its not a question of whether there's Nod forces out here," the commander said, "but a question of how many."

"Right," Granger replied. "I need you to locate that damn facility and give me as much intel you can before we act on it. If the base is as big as I think it is, you may need some support options. Stand by, I'm going to patch you through to Lieutenant Kirce James, one of our liaisons at Theater Ops. She'll handle intel updates and serve as your direct link to Central Command."

"Lieutenant James?" echoed Major Koen from behind Karrde, and the Commander looked up.

"You know her?" he asked, and the major made a face.

"Yeah, she's a liaison between InOps and field officers," he replied, faint dissatisfaction in his voice. "She does her job pretty well, but, uh . . . ."

"But what?"

"She tends to be a bit . . . _dramatic_, sir."

"Great." Karrde knew those types. Usually they were desk jockeys who took their jobs way too seriously. The screen blinked out for a moment, and Karrde frowned, tapping a couple of buttons on the front of it. "Old piece of shit. We should have the tib-refinery fab us up some proper equipment, this place is a mess."

"Won't be here long enough, sir," Koen replied with a shrug as he stepped around. "We'll have to make do with field repairs." To accentuate his point, Koen raised his leg and kicked the side of the display screen hard. It shook, beeped once, and came back on.

In the center of the screen was a new face, that of an attractive young woman clad in the garrison uniform of an InOps agent, long dark hair framing her thin features.

"Ah, Commander Karrde," she said, offering him a slight smile. "I wasn't sure what was wrong on your end, the line was a bit fuzzy."

"Field repairs," Karrde replied, nodding his thanks to Koen. "I presume you're Lieutenant James?" The woman nodded.

"General Granger briefed me on what he wants me to do," she explained, and Karrde hid his frown at her tone, which oozed with self-importance and heaped over-professionalism. She sounded like a drama queen wearing a soldier's uniform. On her end of the line, Kirce was tapping a few keys on her desktop terminal.

"A squadron of Firehawk strike jets are going on standby right now at Langley Air Base," she explained. "I've already uploaded the airstrike codes to your EVA in case you need them."

"General Granger's given me strike craft?" Karrde remarked, looking over the data, and Kirce nodded.

"I'm also in the process of getting an ion cannon in position over your area of operations," she added. "The General is quite clear that he wants you to have a full arsenal of support options ready to go in case this base turns out to be bigger than expected."

"An _ion cannon_?" Karrde muttered, actually surprised at the implications. He'd seen the Sky Sentry reports, of course, but he didn't expect to have an Ion Cannon simply put at his disposal. "What level of firepower?"

"Grade Four," Kirce replied off-handedly, and Karrde had to fight back the urge to burst out laughing. Grade Four was the highest strength ion cannon satellite they had, with destructive capacity rivaling tactical nuclear warheads.

Karrde took back his reservations about Kirce James' attitude; even if she did come off as overly dramatic, she definitely had the competence to back up her voice.

His Comcom vibrated, and Karrde looked down, and then held up a hand.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I've got a report coming in," he said, and called up the intelligence. The Comcom's laser lit up and projected the data directly into his retina: a squad from A Company patrolling along the river had spotted movement on the far side of the banks, and the attached video from their helmet cameras showed several distinct beetle-shaped vehicles across the river, with light cannons mounted atop their chassis. Without hesitation, Karrde looked up and waved at Koen, who was talking with one of his subordinates from D Company.

"Put everyone on heightened alert," he ordered quickly. "We've got Nod Scorpions across the river, north of our position. Lieutenant James, I want those Hawks hot and ready to launch right now. EVA, get me C Company and a copy of Sky Sentry's sub-terran energy readings." The comms center burst into action as the troops scrambled to relay his orders, and his Comcom vibrated, the images of several of C Company's platoon and company commanders appearing on his screen.

"Gentlemen, we've got confirmed Nod armor movement across the river," Karrde explained quickly. "I want a detachment from C Company on the other side of that river and scouting the area. If there's Nod armor moving around, they're preparing for something, and I want to know what the hell it is."

* * *

"You know what the worst part about being on point duty is?"

The question was asked by Ralph Jonah, a lance corporal from Second Platoon, as the loose formation of troops trudged across the brown dirt and equally brown grass a half hour later.

"The exceptionally heightened possibility of getting killed?" Corporal Colt replied as he moved with the other soldier, their respective fire teams moving together, their squads loosely scattered across a kilometer's distance. They were too far apart to actually _talk_ to one another, and radio transmissions would give them away to anyone listening in, so the two soldiers were chatting via point-to-point laser receivers set into their helmets.

"No, aside from that," Jonah replied, sweeping the hills ahead with his helmet scanners.

"The exceptionally heightened possibility of getting killed in new, horrible ways by experimental Nod weapons?"

"No, not that either," Jonah muttered, and chuckled.

"Then what?" Colt asked, as they advanced up a gentle incline. As they moved, the advance recon teams began to walk more slowly, rifles held loose and ready, for they were drawing closer to where the Nod patrol had been detected, and were only a short kilometer's distance from where the satellites had spotted that energy grid.

"No armor support," Jonah explained. It was true; the recon units were advancing without any friendly vehicles in sight, not even a Pitbull. Since they were reconnoitering with the intention of not being detected, instead of patrolling a base perimeter, vehicles would have drawn too much attention.

"So, we're going back to the whole possibility of being killed," Colt responded. Jonah grunted.

"No, its not that. Didn't I just say that?" he sighed. "Its because we have to fucking _walk_ everywhere. And whoever built that bridge _had_ to put it a klick and a half out from Branson."

"At least we got a lift to the bridge," Colt offered, and Jonah grunted again.

"Yeah, and now the B Company boys are just sitting there, because their Pitbulls are too damn big to hide, so we have to go walking all the way across this Yellow Zone shithole to find the Noodles."

"Aw man," Colt muttered, shaking his head as they continued climbing.

"What?"

"Noodles. Now I'm hungry again."

Jonah chuckled as they neared the top of the hill, and a warning light flashed on Colt's helmet, which he quickly relayed to the rest of his squad through the same laser rig. As one, the group of GDI soldiers went down to the dirt and began to crawl up the hill until they reached the top.

Two squads each from Second and Third Platoons had been chosen for this recon detail, as they were the closest to the bridge that led across the river. They were strung out over a kilometer's distance, two dozen riflemen and a single team of grenadiers, but as they reached the top of the hill the groups began to consolidate, moving together slightly.

"Wow," Jonah whispered as they peered across the expanse below, which the maps provided by EVA indicated to be where the energy spikes were coming from.

"Yeah, it's a great big pile of nothing," Colt muttered. Down below, a wide swath of brown plain and rolling hills stretched out, completely featureless save for a few roads cutting through the area.

"Nothing?" echoed one of Second Platoon's snipers. A moment later, a red circle popped up on Colt's HUD, and he magnified the view, and then frowned. About half a kilometer away a black shape poked out of the grass. At first glance it looked like a bush, but Colt realized that bushes didn't have red-tinged leaves made of metal and shaped synthetic crystal.

"Commander," Lieutenant Magrabi called over the radio. "We've got what looks like some miniaturized disruption arrays set up out here. From what we can see, I count at least fifteen of them set up over a kilometer's distance."

"That explains why Sky Sentry couldn't spot the Nod base on the surface," Jonah muttered, and Colt nodded. "Nod active camo fields."

"I've also got what looks like vehicle tracks," called Sergeant Havers over the point-to-point. "Treads, four-wheel vehicles, two-wheel vehicles. They're all over the place. Hard to see with all that grass and brown dirt, but they're there."

"If they've got so many disruption arrays," Colt whispered, "their base has to be huge."

"Can we disrupt the arrays somehow?" Jonah mused. "Reveal the base?"

"And tip off an entire Nod army to our presence?" replied Magrabi over the point-to-point. "We have no indication they even know we're out here. We're staying pu-"

Whatever he was going to say next would remain a mystery, for the Lieutenant's head and upper body vanished, replaced by a flying cloud of meat, bone, and ceramic armor.

The entire top of the hill suddenly exploded as a thunderous volley of shells and machinegun fire ripped into the dirt. Soldiers exploded and vanished, smoke and dirt flying into the air amidst clouds of crimson and the drowned-out screams of dying men and women. GDI troops scrambled to their feet, diving down the other side of the hill for whatever cover they cold find.

"Contact!" Sergeant Havers shouted over the radio as the surviving GDI troops took refuge behind the hill. Below, they could see shapes appearing as they drove out of the area influenced by the disruption array. Crimson-painted, beetle-shaped tanks, four-wheeled all-terrain buggies mounting machineguns and missile launchers, and hordes of soldiers clad in the militia fatigues, coats, and cloaks that they had seen hours earlier.

"Repeat, Commander," Havers shouted as the GDI soldiers hunkered down under the intense barrage. "We have heavy enemy contact!" he risked a peek over the top of the hill, and a tank shell nearly took his head off. However, Havers' helmet camera got a clear glimpse of the force billowing out of the disruption field, and his blood ran cold.

"Commander . . . holy shit, there's _thousands_ of them!"

* * *

--

* * *

**Global Defense Initiative Military Archives - **_**Evolution of GDI Infantry Doctrine, Section One (excerpt)**_

_In the late 20__th__ century and early 21__st__ century, GDI's standard infantry doctrine followed that of most of the armies of its member nations, with individual soldiers' specialties mixed in individual squads; for example, a grenadier and a machinegunner would be part of each four-man fireteam in a squad. Even after the dissolution of the United States, the European Union, and many other member states of GDI, this process continued, as most of the GDI officers came from these nations and followed this standard doctrine. However, in recent years, intensive analysis of infantry operations against the Brotherhood of Nod, as well as the other myriad threats in the modern age have resulted in a change in infantry doctrine. _

_Mixed specializations within squads results in optimal conditions when engaged in low-intensity conflict, where the squad and its larger platoon would find itself operating over a large area. However, in fighting Nod and powerful Tiberium-based lifeforms, GDI forces found that operating in cohesive, platoon-sized elements proved more effective, particularly against small raiding forces of Nod troops that could overwhelm individual squads. The resulting change in military doctrine has restructured GDI infantry forces to operate in cohesive platoons instead of individual squadrons as part of a larger platoon._

_Standard GDI platoons total between thirty-six to fifty men, depending on their objectives, purpose, and specializations. Of these troops, there will be between four to six units of six-man rifleman squads, which can be further split into two three-man fireteams. The remainder of the platoon will generally be made up of squads of missile-launcher equipped soldiers, grenadiers, or Zone Troopers. Each infantry company will generally have one or two pairs of snipers assigned as well. The numbers of riflemen and heavy weapons troops vary depending on the unit's purpose; for example, a recon platoon will have a higher number of snipers - usually two or three sniper teams per platoon and fewer heavy weapons troopers. Units intended for open-field combat or anti-vehicle roles will typically have a larger number of missile-equipped soldiers and Zone Troopers, while urban warfare specialists will have a higher concentration of grenadier teams and snipers . . . ._

* * *

--

* * *

One element I found quite interesting and enjoyable about Tiberium Wars was the inclusion of the Intelligence files, which do a great job fleshing out elements of the 2047 Tiberium Earth that you don't see in-game. In order to cut back on the exposition, I've decided to do something similar with this story; observations or storyline items that may be of interest in helping to construct a cohesive view of the tale I'm retelling will generally be presented in such a format, either as excerpts from fictional files, interviews, or so on. Generally, any material I would like to include for expostition purposes but would bog down the narrative any more than it already is will be presented in such a fashion, as you see above.

An element I'm working on in this story is to acurrately portray the various military forces encountered in the game. GDI, for example, is quite conventional and will follow the lines of conventional militaries, while Nod, being a relatively decentralized force will have unique rank structures and force organization. I will say that while both Karrde and Rawne have the same basic rank of "Commander" they have far different roles, capabilities, styles, and powers as Commanders. Another reason I'm sticking close to proper military organization and operations is due to my disgust at DeCandido's shoddy efforts at creating GDI's military in the Tiberium Wars novelization, not the least of which is the incredibly idiotic way in which his Marty Stu character of Vega gets promoted. No modern military _in history_ has _ever_ gone so far as to promote a _fucking Privateto Sergeant **on his first day**_ for what is essentially **_blind luck and pulling a precision gunshot._** If I was McNiel, I would have _kicked Vega out of the military_ for doing something as blatantly stupid as **_DROPPING HIS RIFLE AND USING HIS FUCKING HANDGUN FOR A LONG-RANGE SHOT._**

(raging seething of raw gun-and-military-nut hatred and anger)

Vega doesn't show any sign of leadership or competence at that point, he's a wet-behind-the-ears private fresh from boot camp, and he gets promoted to Sergeant _(four fucking paygrades! What. The. Fuck.)_ because his thermals kick in at a lucky moment and he can pop a man in the forehead at fifty yards with his sidearm? That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of. I mean, for fuck's sake, we have rifles precisely for that kind of shot in the first place, and any modern soldier who tried to do that with his pistol would not only likely miss, but he'd potentially hit the hostage, and even if he did hit the Nod officer in the head, there's no guarantee that the pistol round would have penetrated his helmet at that range. I lost all possible respect for DeCandido when he wrote that part and the point where Vega got jumped to Sergeant, for at that moment it was a clear sign he had no business writing a novel regarding any professional military force.

And that's not counting all the other nonsense in the novel, which I'll get to in later author's notes.

Next chapter, more of the Nod side is going to be shown as they raid Goddard and the GDI troops rush to save the scouts. Its gonna be fun.

Until next chapter . . . .


	4. Chapter III: Opening Volley

_**Chapter III: Opening Volley**_

_"We were convinced we'd won. We'd joined the military for money, for college degrees, for a bit of adventure, for tradition, for all kinds of reasons. Some stupid, some noble. Maybe one in a thousand of us expected we'd all be shitting ourselves when a nuke hit."_

_-Lieutenant Elias Denan, Global Defense Initiative 3rd Virginia Infantry Division_

Goddard Space Center could best be described as a multi-tier fortress, not unlike the complex castles seen in the Middle Ages. It was certainly similar to one, in that if assaulted from without it could probably hold out for a good length of time, with multiple layers of tall, railgun-equipped watchtowers and heavy Guardian Cannons, armored turrets equipped with high-temperature armor piercing discarding sabot rounds that could punch through most vehicles as if they were made of paper. A garrison of several hundred men dwelled within the facility, patrolling throughout the multiple tiers of walls and defenses, and the facility maintained a constant uplink with GDI command centers; in case of attack, nearby GDI bases could respond in a matter of minutes.

It was also similar to ancient castles in that it had weak spots that a clever enemy could exploit. In the Middle Ages, this had including tunneling beneath the walls with sappers or the usage of cannons to breach the walls. In Goddard's case, it was that GDI relied on air defense towers in the surrounding bases to defend against incoming aircraft; the possibility of aircraft being broken down, transported inside the miles-wide air defense perimeter, and then being reassembled had never occurred to them.

"I always find it amazing how unprepared GDI can be," Commander Logan Rawne remarked as he peered through the holographic interface, showing pirated satellite feeds and updated information from the squad leaders of each unit, waiting on the Carryalls to begin their assault, even as the transports closed in on the GDI base.

"Well, you gotta admit, we are the smart ones," Ajay replied with a grin. "'Specially with Kane leading the way."

"Its just that we've been at war with them for fifty years and have fought two planet-consuming conflicts thus far," Rawne said, shaking his head. "But look at this. Its like Hammerfest all over again. GDI is completely unprepared for us." Rawne didn't mention the fact that GDI were the defenders in most cases, being forced into a stance that required them to hold territory for prolonged periods of time, which enabled the Brotherhood to gain the initiative and pierce their defenses when they least expected it. It had worked well at the advent of the Second Tiberium War, and it was working here now at Goddard Space Center.

"GDI is never prepared for the vengeance of the pure and the righteous," Jose Alvarez declared, and Rawne chuckled as he watched the holographic display, leaning forward intently. The Carryalls were swooped toward Goddard even then, behind the group of invisible warriors gliding along the air currents toward their destination. Even the holographic display didn't _actually_ show where they were; the Shadow teams would not be revealing their position by transmitting back to Rawne until they had secured the initial objective. The display simply showed where they were _expected_ to be.

Rawne watched as the markers indicating the Shadows closed with the perimeter of Goddard Space Center, and whispered a benediction for the blessed warriors as they would strike the opening blows of this war.

* * *

Detonations shook their bones and explosions pounded their ears as the recon team hid behind the hilltop, incoming fire raining down from the advancing Nod army. They had no idea how many were coming at them, beyond Sergeant Havers' rough estimation of thousands of Nod soldiers advancing toward the base of the hill, backed by a solid line of Nod vehicles and armor. Heavy machineguns, rockets, and tank cannons hammered their position, creating a curtain of explosions and flying debris that forced the recon troopers to remain behind the hill. The storm of fire was so intense that none of them could even risk peeking up above the top of the hill, let alone return fire.

Havers, now the ranking officer among the recon soldiers, looked around, his mind racing. He knew that as long as the bombardment continued, the Nod troops weren't likely to charge up the hilltop - _though one never knew with Nod fanatics _- but that wouldn't prevent them from taking the long way around the hill and flanking their position. In their current state, the recon troops were pinned down and exposed with little cover, and that would make them ripe targets for a flanking assault.

The dull _thoomps_ of firing grenade launchers nearby told him that the grenadiers at least had the bright idea to use their launchers to fire over the top of hill. It likely wouldn't stop the Nod troops, but it would give them reason to pause in the face of incoming explosives. Havers looked around the hill, searching for any cover they could find, and he spotted a line of low buildings half a kilometer to the northwest of their position. It looked like a series of old warehouses set around a towering Tiberium spike, the construct apparently still functional.

"Commander!" Havers shouted over the radio, barely able to hear his own voice over the bombardment. "Recon One, making for cover half a klick northeast of our position! Requesting cover! Repeat, requesting covering fire!"

* * *

"Understood, Recon One," Karrde replied over the radio as he shuffled a half-dozen units at once. "Be advised, we have no assets nearby to cover you. Firehawk air support inbound in . . . ." Karrde checked his Comcom. "Ten minutes!"

"We don't have _five_ minutes, sir!" Havers responded. "Nod troops will be flanking our position in moments if they have any brains! We can't stay here!"

"B Company's escorts are closing in," Major Koen reported. "ETA eight minutes until they reach the hill."

"Can you hold for eight minutes?" Karrde called.

"Negative!" Havers called. "We're preparing to move now! If we hold position any longer they'll be all over us!" Karrde frowned, watching the fluid situation unfold, his mind racing as he tried to assess his options . . . but he had _no_ options at that moment, and he knew the troops needed to retreat, _now._ The Pitbulls from B Company were closing in, but they were still several minutes out.

"Commander," came a call from one end of the command center, and Karrde looked up, to see an immense, two and a half meter tall figure standing in the doorway, his body covered with thick armor plating, a long-barreled rifle hooked to a heavy backpack on the rear of the heavy armor. The visor of the integrated helmet was up, revealing a young-faced soldier with the makings of a brown mustache on his face.

"Lieutenant Wallace, Fourth Platoon, A Company," the Zone Trooper said quickly, and pointed to the map on the largest display screen. "EVA reports that river is less than three hundred meters wide along the shore by the base. I can take Fourth Platoon and jet straight across that river, put two dozen railguns in perfect position to cover our troops in a couple of minutes."

Karrde looked over the map and the spot where he estimated the Zone Trooper detachment's jetpacks would drop them. The Commander frowned.

"You'll be dropping in with minimal cover," he warned. "There's thousands of Nod troops on the other side of the river. I can't guarantee your safety. Even with your armor, there's only twenty-four of you against an army."

"Those are our men out there," Wallace replied with a shrug, accentuated by the heavy armor he wore. That was all he needed to say. Karrde nodded after a moment.

"Godspeed, Lieutenant." The Zone Trooper nodded, the visor sliding closed on his helmet as he turned and left the room. Karrde looked back toward the screen, showing the one-sided battle raging on.

"Get me Lieutenant James," Karrde ordered. "I want that damn Ion Cannon."

* * *

Standard-issue GDI radar scanners and other sensors were well-suited toward tracking most forms of aircraft used by the Brotherhood of Nod, but were ill-suited toward tracking innocuous flying objects such as birds. Since most combat aircraft were highly complex machines, the array of sensors surrounding every GDI base were well-suited for tracking them, but as a wedge of slender forms descended toward Goddard Space Center, barely discernable from the clouds and blue sky above them, the base's sensor net did not notice them. The machines, optimized to detect the engine emissions and radar signatures of Nod's other array of aircraft, did not even notice the radar-absorbent material built into the man-sized flying objects, and the simple synthetic glider wings and pressurized air jets that guided the shadowy warriors did not even raise a blip on the air defense network's more esoteric sensors.

A three-man GDI fireteam was patrolling just inside the outer wall, the soldiers talking and joking among themselves as they circled around the communications and air defense center, idly watching for possible threats. With Nod's threat level downgraded to Low, they had little reason to worry about enemy threats.

They died quietly and mercifully fast, only one of them even having time to wonder why the ground was rushing up to meet him so unexpectedly.

Clad in body-hugging active camouflage suits over their light but high-tech suits of armor, the knot of stealthy Nod Shadows moved past the slain infidels. They split into two groups of four men each, one group clambering up the side of the communications center and penetrating the exterior lock just below the towering radar array, while the others took up positions outside to guard against GDI intrusion.

Inside, a GDI engineer looked up from a console beneath the radar array in time to see a mono-molecular blade dive into his throat, the whispering Shadows moving past even as the man fell to his knees, clutching his neck in shock as he died. The Shadows bypassed the elevator leading down into the center of the communications array, instead using the stairs to descend silently.

The main room held a few GDI technicians and engineers, all sitting at their consoles or lounging around, not having much to do except handle routine calls from the Philadelphia and the Pentagon. However, as they sat there, one of the technicians found his console buzzing, a high-priority message coming through. He tapped a few keys, and gasped in shock, which got everyone's attention. Without hesitating, the technician routed the message to Colonel Gabriel, who was the base commander for Goddard.

"What's going on?" asked one of the engineers, who did not see the door leading to the stairwell slide open.

"That was Lieutenant Kirce James," the technician replied as his hands worked over the console. "We've just been ordered to bring the Ion Cannon online."

The Shadows slipping into the room t that moment paused. One of them made a quick gesture, and the quartet dispersed across the room to dark corners, silenced rifles at the ready as they listened in on the conversation. The team leader opened a radio link to Commander Rawne as they lurked in plain sight, unseen by the GDI soldiers in the room.

* * *

Rawne paled as he heard the report coming in over the radio, and looked to his men.

"Can you confirm that GDI is preparing an Ion Cannon strike?" he asked. Both Ajay and Jose looked shocked and stunned, to say the least. Over the radio, the Shadow team leader clicked his mic in response.

"They must have found one of our forward bases," Ajay said, and spun around in his seat, hammering keys on his laptop. "Let me check the alert flags . . . ." Within a few moments he looked up, his expression grim.

"North Carolina," he growled. "They've encountered GDI troops at the perimeter of their sensor net. There's a battle going on right now. That's got to be where the Ion Cannon is being moved to fire."

"How many Brothers and Sisters are at that base?" Jose demanded, standing up, his red cape rippling as he moved.

"Close to fifteen thousand troops, total," Ajay said after a moment, shaking his head. "the base is dense and compact, too. If they drop an Ion Cannon on that place . . . no one's walking out of there."

"We must stop this!" Jose said, wheeling on Rawne. "Logan! The Shadows can cut off their communications! If we do so, we can prevent the Ion Cannon from firing!"

"Wait," Ajay said, holding up his hand. "GDI's got a direct uplink between Goddard and the Philadelphia right now." The intelligence agent paused, and shook his head grimly once more. "If we cut off direct communications, especially between Goddard and the Ion Cannon network, they'll be on us like a crybaby on Eye Candy."

"We cannot let the Ion Cannon fire," Alvarez growled, shaking his head as well. "Over ten thousand will die if we do not stop this!"

"Ajay is right," Rawne muttered, his voice cutting through the argument. "There are countless _millions_ of our Brothers and Sisters poised across the globe, waiting for this mission to carry through. If we alert GDI to our presence in Goddard before the strike team has arrived, we will tip our hand and the satellite control network will be fully functional when Kane unleashes our armies. Imagine what will happen if the entire Ion Cannon network is unleashed on our forces." Rawne closed his eyes and sighed.

"We must not interfere with the firing of this Ion Cannon." He opened his eyes, and looked at the holographic display. "Shadow Team One, clear out the comms center and disable all local communications except the Ion Cannon control network. If that goes down, they'll know what we're planning before the strike team is ready. Once local communications are disrupted we will move to the second step of this operation."

Jose Alvarez glowered at Rawne, but after a moment, the Black Hand sighed and sat down in his chair once more, cursing the fickle dictates of fate.

* * *

"Go to full burn, Troopers!" Lieutenant Victor Wallace shouted as he bounded across the asphalt on the north side of the base. The rest of the base behind them was scrambling as Karrde threw every asset he had into motion to assist his beleaguered recon team, but the only element they had that could reach them in time were the two dozen power-armored soldiers stomping toward the river beside Wallace. Two dozen soldiers weren't very many, but they were Zone Troopers, among the most powerful and mobile soldiers of GDI; if anyone _could_ make a difference, it was them.

"We've got a two hundred meter gap to bridge," Wallace added. "and we're going to keep pushing as far as we can past that until our engines overheat! Opposite bank is going to be crawling with Nod, so I want full sat uplinks and railguns charged and ready to fire the moment we hit dirt! Understood?" A chorus of acknowledgements sounded over the radio as the bounding Zone Troopers neared the river bank. The powered armor let them bypass terrain otherwise impossible for regular infantry, and let them move several times faster than regular troops on foot. Within moments they were stomping down the riverbank, and an instant before the Troopers would have charged into the water they ignited their boosters.

The miniaturized engines mounted on their backs were a combination of chemical engines and the turbofans used by Orca aircraft, and had enough power to lift eight hundred pounds of man and battle armor off the ground and hurl him a considerable distance. Of course, the miniaturized engines had their drawbacks, ranging from short range - due to energy requirements and overheating - to limited maneuverability, as Zone Trooper armor wasn't terribly aerodynamic and didn't mount much in the way of maneuvering systems.

Two dozen blazing jetpacks lifted Wallace and his force off the ground, and they careened through the air, their engines thrumming and pumping. Slate gray water flashed past beneath them as they cut straight across the riverbank, and Wallace checked his railgun as he cut over the river, to find the weapon was fully charged and ready to fire. A quick consultation with EVA showed an abundance of targets for the railgun, and he picked out the highest priority he could find, including a force of light attack buggies and armed motorcycles breaking off from the main force and circling around to the south. If their trajectory was right, the Zone Trooper force would hit dirt just in time to catch a beautiful flanking shot into the circling enemy vehicles.

Wallace grinned as the ground loomed up before them, and pumped all the energy he could into his booster. Dirt flew past underneath, and his suit began whining as the engines began to overheat.

"Troopers!" he shouted over the radio a she readied his gun. "Cut engines in three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!" Suddenly, the two dozen Zone Troopers dropped to the dirt, their engines flaring just enough to allow them to hit the ground in a controlled manner, and then they were off, stomping across the brown dirt of the Carolina Badlands, rushing up a slight rise. The EVA uplink showed their victims were passing just below the rise, and Wallace had them sighted and targeted even before he reached the top of the hill.

The Zone Troopers suddenly emerged on top of the hill, railguns raised, and within a heartbeat had opened fire. Two dozen sets of magnetic coils flared with an intense pulse of energy, and two dozen depleted uranium, armor-piercing, discarding-sabot spikes lanced out from the guns, splitting the air and leaving intense white trails of superheated water vapor. The Nod vehicle drivers didn't even realize they were dead; by the time Wallace felt the recoil through his armor, the railgun rounds had already stabbed through the Nod forces, shattering the flimsy light vehicles into hundreds of pieces, utterly annihilating the flanking force in an eyeblink.

"Hit the armor!" Wallace ordered, switching to a new set of targets: the light tanks and remaining Nod assault vehicles pounding the ridge. "Give 'em a real target to shoot at!" Two seconds later, the railguns had fully recharged, and the Zone Troopers shifted their aim, their onboard computers calculating targeting vectors and firing lines, providing the Troopers with targeting solutions even as they shifted their aim.

The air cracked and steam traced a line between the railguns and their targets as the discarding sabots punched through Nod armor like the fist of an angry god hitting a wall of tissue paper. The Scorpion tanks' armor, well-suited for protecting against standard explosives and cannon fire, were utterly useless against the sheer destructive force in the railgun rounds, and ammunition and fuel erupted into flames as the DPU spikes shattered their way through the tanks.

"Third volley, then move southeast!" Wallace roared, as the surviving lines of tanks began to shift their aim toward the sudden new threat. By the time the tanks unleashed a wild, uncontrolled volley of shells at the Zone Troopers' positions, they had already recharged their railguns. Even as explosive ordnance rained down wildly around them, the Troopers calmly aimed and fired a third barrage. Armor crumpled and exploded, light vehicles were ripped apart, and Nod infantry who were unfortunate enough to be in the way had various parts of their anatomy explode into bloody vapor.

"Withdraw, Troopers!" Wallace ordered, and the engine on their backpacks cut in again. The two dozen power-armored soldiers were hurled backwards and away from the incoming rain of fire, launched fifty meters south and east behind the hill. They began plodding away as quickly as possible, back toward riverbank, Wallace watching EVA as they stomped across the brown dirt. Sure enough, the remaining Nod light vehicles were breaking off from the main force and careening toward their position.

"Prepare to break pursuit," Wallace ordered, and the Zone Troopers acknowledged his order as they neared the river bank. They spun around, raising their rifles, and targeting the oncoming Nod vehicles before they even came over the now distant hilltop.

A line of light buggies and attack motorcycles rose over the top of the hill, and shattered just as quickly. Fuel tanks exploded as the molten sabot rounds screamed through them, and the vehicles chasing the first wave collided headlong into the burning metal corpses of their comrades.

"Back across, Troopers!" Wallace commanded, and the Zone Troopers whirled, engaging their engines and jetting over the river once more. A volley of machinegun fire and wildly inaccurate rockets chased the power-armored men as they fell back. Wallace grinned as he flew over the river bank, knowing the Noddies were screaming the most savage of curses as the Zone Troopers escaped.

Wallace hit the dirt and turned around, seeing several enemy vehicles sitting along the river bank, firing inaccurate barrages over the water. Not even bothering to give orders to his men, Wallace shouldered his rifle, picked out a target, and destroyed the Nod fanatics where they stood. The rest of his force did the same, launching a fusillade of railgun spikes that killed the Nod soldiers before they knew that they were being shot at again. The few surviving vehicles spun around quickly and retreated before they could suffer the fate of their comrades, and with a hearty, mocking laugh, Wallace raised his left hand, blessing whatever GDI engineer had chosen to give the Zone Trooper armor a full set of fingers as he sent the fleeing Noddies a single-digit salute.

"Is that it, sir?" asked Corporal Jameston, next to Lieutenant Wallace.

"Hell no!" Wallace shot back, reloading his rifle and firing up his engines once more. "Get ready for another go, Troopers! We'll show the Noddies just what it means to fuck with us!"

* * *

"Seven minutes until IC-27 reaches geo-synchronous orbit," reported one of the technicians, and Colonel David Gabriel nodded. He looked around the control room, at the uppermost floors of GDI's ASAT Control Center in Goddard. GDI design philosophy for such facilities had favored position and convenience over "excessive" security, and the communications facilities and the control center were built close together to both increase anti-intrusion security and save money.

"EVA, what's the status on the ground forces in that area?" the balding officer called, walking toward the main screen. The building-sized screen shifted, showing a half-dozen data feeds from the battlefield in North Carolina. He saw jerky images from infantry cameras on the front line, satellite telemetry, the high-quality sensor readouts from Zone Troopers, and more.

"GDI forces are currently withdrawing under heavy assault," the local AI's monotone female voice replied. "Estimates from local resources in the area indicate over two thousand Nod soldiers and support vehicles on the ground."

"Christ," Gabriel breathed. "Where did they get that many troops? How did InOps miss a base with that much firepower?" EVA paused, devoting a small portion of its runtime and bandwidth to accommodate the rhetorical question.

"Ground personnel reports indicate the presence of distortion and disruptor field arrays in the area," the AI replied a moment later.

"She's right, sir," added one of the lieutenants nearby, at one of the orbital targeting consoles. The two technicians nearby were hammering away at their consoles, trying to get the huge, ungainly weapons satellite into position. "Sky Sentry Alpha 45 is showing nothing on visual, EM, or IR in that area, beyond lots of radiation coming from underground."

"We have proper targeting coordinates for that area, correct?" Gabriel asked, and the lieutenant nodded.

"Five minutes until geo-synchronous orbit," came the corporal from earlier.

"Colonel," called another enlisted tech from the communications sector of the control room. Gabriel looked up, catching the urgency in the soldier's tone, and walked over.

"Report," he replied as he neared.

"Sir, local radio and landlines just went out," the corporal replied, gesturing toward his screen. On the monitor he could see a spider-web of communications lines and radio transceivers, all of them blinking red. On the base schematic, he could see the main communications hub flashing red as well.

"Do we still have orbital?" Gabriel asked, and the corporal nodded.

"Its just the local lines to the nearby bases, sir," he replied. "But it doesn't-" he paused as a line of text scrolled across his screen. "Wait, the guys in the comms center are reporting that its just a local malfunction."

"Tell them to fix it, quickly," Gabriel replied with a frown and looked back up toward the main screen. "Have we lost comms with the troops in Carolina?"

"Yes sir, but we should still be getting satellite," the corporal replied, nodding. He paused, and looked down at his screen. "Sir, our entire network connection with GDI ground forces in B-2 is offline."

"Everything?" Gabriel asked, and the corporal nodded.

"Except for satellite and internal comms, we're blind," he muttered, hammering at his keys. "The guys in the comms center are saying they think it might be some attempt at network intrusion by Nod."

"Impossible," Gabriel muttered, looked at the main screen. Three minutes until the Ion Cannon was in place. "Get a squad of troops over to the comms center, see what those idiots are-"

The floor shook slightly, and Gabriel looked up, his eyes widening.

"EVA, report!"

"Large detonation detected in the south quarter of the base," the AI replied calmly. "Heavy fire and structural damage in Barracks Complex A and first and second tier defensive power plants."

"EVA, sound the alert!" Gabriel shouted, spinning toward his communications officers. "I want a platoon to secure the comms center, now! Get online with the _Philadelphia_, and activate the IR distress beacons! Goddard is under attack!"

* * *

"Run, dammit!" Sergeant Havers was screaming, and PFC Winters was doing just that, his legs pumping as fast as his breath, his heart hammering like a heavy machinegun on full-auto. The grenade launcher was gripped tightly in his hand as bullets ripped through the air over the hill, the PFC barely able to remember to keep his fingers away from his weapon's trigger.

"Half a klick northeast!" Havers shouted again. "Move it! Go go go!"

The air was blazing with gunfire as the Nod forces continued to pound the hill, but the storm of fire had noticeably slackened in the last few moments, accompanied by the distinct cracking sound of blasting railguns. Havers already had the troops falling back down the hill, but he had noticed the break in the Nod assault, and took advantage of it. Now, the surviving GDI troops, less than twenty total, were dashing across the field in a flat-out, adrenaline-fueled run.

There was an explosion somewhere behind them as the recon force got halfway to the warehouses, and Winters' heart jumped in his throat. Someone out there had spotted them breaking off from the hill and running for cover, and now the tanks were firing on them again. The image of Nod buggies and motorcycles flying across the badlands and mowing them down as they ran flashed through his mind, and Winters nearly panicked.

Then something exploded nearby, and one of the grenadiers vanished. Another soldier from Third Platoon flew past, launched through the air by the detonation, and Winters saw him crash heavily to the ground. Every instinct in the grenadier told him that the man was dead and he needed to keep running, and Winters passed the fallen soldier. Then, something told him to stop, and even as his sheer terror and fear kept trying to make him follow his men, the grenadier dug his feet into the dirt.

He spun around, rushing back toward the fallen soldier, the back of his mind screaming that this was sheer suicide. Winters ignored it, running back toward the downed man, who was trying to push himself up despite the fact that his entire right side was riddled with shrapnel wounds. Winters bent down, wrapped his arms around the wounded man, and hauled him up onto his shoulder. An explosion nearby deafened the grenadier and nearly threw him off his feet, but by some miracle Winters was still standing. He paused for an instant to balance the wounded man on his shoulder, and then spun, rushing aback across the battlefield with his burden in tow.

His breath was coming out in more ragged gasps as the grenadier fought for every bit of air he could get. As he ran, Winters felt his burden seem to lighten, and he had to check to make sure the man was still there. He was, and Winters then realized that the intensity of the moment was deadening his senses. He drove forward, ignoring the pain beginning to creep into his legs as he charged across the badlands. The man on his back was counting on him to carry him to safety.

Then, less than a hundred meters from the outer perimeter of the warehouses, Winters' hearing was starting to come back, and he heard the terrifying sound of revving engines. He glanced back, in time to see a wedge of motorcycles shooting over the brown wasteland behind him, closing at terrifying speed.

Fire shot from the lead bike, and a missile screamed past Winters, exploding somewhere to his right. Pain blossomed in his legs as shrapnel cut through his armor, and he nearly fell. Letting out a defiant curse, the grenadier pushed through the agony, dashing forward, refusing to give up. As he ran, his left hand grabbed his grenade launcher from its sling, and he twisted, firing wildly out behind him. The weapon's recoil was immense, but he gripped the launcher tightly as detonations scattered across the landscape behind him.

The lead bike suddenly exploded, and Winters was astonished he'd even been able to hit anything. Then, over the buzzing engines of the bikes, he could hear the roar of gunfire coming from ahead, as well as the "burping" sounds of grenade launchers blasting away. Looking ahead, the grenadier saw the recon troopers inside the warehouses laying down a barrage of covering fire, shouting and waving for him to hurry. Steeling himself, the grenadier sprinted forward, pumping everything he had into his legs. The bikes were still firing behind him, missiles flying through the air and exploding all around him as the Nod fanatics tried to bag their prey.

Then, Winters was diving through an open doorway, and spinning around behind the wall, the explosions now distant and unimportant things. The hands of other men reached up and took the wounded man off his shoulder, and the grenadier sagged back against the wall panting furiously, sweat fogging up his helmet HUD as the war thundered all around him.

"Everyone, bunker down!" shouted Sergeant Havers over the radio as the small GDI force traded fire with their attackers. "Fire from the sky is inbound, ETA five minutes!"

A hand touched Winters' shoulder, and he jerked, looking up at the person who touched him. He was a corporal from Third Platoon, who nodded reassuringly at the look from the grenadier. The man extended a hand, and Winters took it, letting himself get pulled back up onto his feet.

"You hit, blooper?" the corporal asked, and Winters shook his head, the reassuring nickname for his MOS helping to calm him slightly.

"Then blow shit up!" Winters grinned behind his helmet, and nodded, managing a chuckle as the wall behind him exploded, a missile nearly shredding two soldiers. The grenadier rushed toward the hole, reloading his launcher as he moved, and fired a shot at the Nod troops outside as he crouched beside the gap.

The enemy poured across the field, and the GDI return fire seemed important and worthless in the face of the Nod armored assault.

* * *

Fully half of the GDI defense force stationed at Goddard was off-duty when the Carryalls swooped over the walls. Several sentries looked up in shock as the bulky, quad-engine transports settled down in the parking lots around the comms center, but immediate warnings of the intrusion were cut off with the whisper of silenced rifles. The Nod Shadow troopers fanned out from the comms center as soon as their task was finished, and though they were few in number, they were swift and lethal, snuffing out the first eyes to spy the Nod warriors pouring out of their transports.

Many GDI troops were in the main barracks complex, just outside the main road leading into the compound and near the generators powering the majority of the outer defensive emplacements. With their sentries eliminated by the lurking Shadows, the only warning they had was in the form of screamed Nod litanies and prayers as a dozen suicide bombers sprinted into the complex. Enhanced by destructive but potent Tiberium-based injections, they ran faster than any human could manage. One GDI guard managed to kill a single bomber before the others sprayed him with machine pistol fire, and one of the bombers flung himself at the doors leading inside the barracks complex, detonating his charges as he hit. Metal buckled and blew apart in a deafening shock of Tiberium-based explosives, and three more bombers leapt through the entrance. Their deaths were heralded by massive explosions from within the complex that slew hundreds of shocked and unarmed men and women.

A Pitbull on patrol swerved toward the detonations and rising smoke as more bombers hurled themselves at the power generators. The driver of the light vehicle immediately stopped as he saw a flood of lightly-armed soldiers rushing from the landing zone and running toward the disabled defensive lines. Even as the Pitbull's gunner began shouting warnings over the radio, rocket-propelled grenades lanced out, striking the vehicle and consuming the troopers in fireballs and screaming shrapnel.

Confessor Nicholas was in the center of the Nod force as they rushed across the open ground at the south end of the space complex. He whipped his men into a savage frenzy, and they charged without heed to what losses they suffered. GDI patrols hurried to the site of the assault, but as they encountered the Nod soldiers they were cut down in streams of massed fire. Confusion filled the complex as the Nod troops swiftly punched through the minimal resistance. A platoon of the fanatical militia rushed inside and secured a large, multi-story office building along the main roads into the center of the complex, clearing out both civilian and soldier alike with equal mercilessness. Amidst the carnage, they began setting up heavy machinegun emplacements and missile launchers to fend off the coming counterattack.

The GDI troops were still trying to respond when their main motor pool on the west side of the complex found itself being bombarded by RPGs, and moments later they came face to face with another mob of screaming suicide bombers. In their Tiberium-fueled, faith-crazed zealotry, they rushed headlong into the gunfire from GDI guards, ignoring bullet wounds and shrapnel in order to get close enough to make their deaths meaningful. Eighty percent of Goddard's vehicle complement, including several heavy Predator tanks, disappeared in a string of Tiberium-powered fireballs.

Amidst the chaos, the Nod troopers wasted no time launching a barrage of missiles across the facility, toward the towering ASAT Control Center at the heart of the complex. Though the rockets did little damage to the armored structure, they got the point across: Nod was inside the compound and they were after the control center.

It took several more minutes for GDI to mount a real response, as most of the surviving defense force regrouped and then launched a concerted attack against the dug-in Nod troops. Rockets screamed back and forth and GDI Pitbulls and missile troops engaged Nod rocket soldiers, and GDI fireteams advanced and attempted to surround and flank the dug-in Nod militia. Bodies piled up and smoke rose over the southern end of the complex as the two forces surged back and forth; the Nod troops were still outnumbered by the GDI defenders, but the infidels were unable to press their advantage against the entrenched Nod soldiers. Nor did they have any reason to; though Nod had disabled external communications, the infrared distress beacons and orbital uplink were summoning reinforcements from nearby bases who would quickly envelop and collapse the Nod defense. All the GDI troops needed to do was keep the invaders bottled up.

However, Nod had no intention of breaking out, for the true strike force had already taken wing and was invisibly passing over the GDI positions. The initial squadron of Shadows glided over the battlefield, aiming for their target, which by now was almost devoid of any remaining defenses: the ASAT Control Center.

* * *

Havers didn't hear EVA the first time, as the sonic crack and roaring detonations of high-velocity bullets blasting out of his carbine drowned out the AI's voice.

"Repeat that, EVA," he muttered, rolling back behind cover and switching out magazines. The field outside the warehouses was pockmarked with the shattered corpses of several Nod light vehicles, but the fanatics had started rolling Scorpion tanks toward their position. It would be a challenge to hold this location without anti-tank support.

"_Firehawk Strike Group November Two Seven Seven inbound, requiring targeting data,"_ the AI repeated. _"ETA one minute."_

"Copy that! Patch us through!" Havers shouted, and turned toward his men. "Incoming 'hawks requiring targeting! Las the tanks!" At that order, several pre-designated troopers ceased fire, and activated the laser sights on their rifles. Barely visible beams of tightly focused light lanced out, the soldiers sweeping them over the enemy Scorpions, barely visible but rapidly approaching.

"Strike Group November Two Seven Seven, this is FAC Alpha One, do you copy, over?" Havers called, setting his carbine down and grabbing his sniper rifle. The powerful laser designator on the weapon activated, and he settled the scope over the lead Nod Scorpion.

"_Alpha One, November Two Seven Seven, we read you,"_ came the voice of the Firehawk squad leader as they screamed across the North Carolina badlands. _"Thirty seconds out, requesting targets, over."_

"Stand by, November Two Seven Seven," Havers called. "Spotters, do you have good light?" A chorus of affirmative responses flooded back. "EVA, sort and feed telemetry to November Two Seven Seven. November Two Seven Seven, targets are illuminated and being sorted, over."

Three seconds passed, and the warehouse shook again as the Nod tanks opened fire.

"_Alpha One, targets are clear. Deploying ordnance in eight. Standby for BDA."_ The warehouse shook again as the Nod vehicles continued pounding, and in the distance, Havers could hear the faintest roar of supersonic jet engines, which told him the Firehawks were _very_ close. He watched the Nod vehicles continue advancing, and then fiery streaks flashed across the sky for a brief instant.

The field before the warehouse complex exploded, plumes of flame bursting for an instant before black and brown smoke blossomed into the sky. As the shockwave from the explosion rumbled past the GDI troopers, they could hear the continued roaring of the Firehawks as they lanced past the position. Cheers filled the warehouse as GDI soldiers shouted gleeful curses at the Nod troops amidst the smoke and raining debris.

"November Two Seven Seven," Havers called, grim satisfaction working its way into his words. "Targets are burning."

"_Copy that Alpha One,"_ the squad leader replied over the radio, his jets swooping over the warehouse. _"Sighting friendly forces approaching southeast of your position. Hostiles look like they're falling back from up here, over."_

"EVA, confirm that?" Havers asked, and the AI replied with satellite images displaying the Nod infantry forces pulling back to beyond the hill. A moment later, a warning flashed over the sniper's HUD, just as the Firehawk attack jets peeled off and screamed away at full speed.

"Everyone, down!" Havers shouted as he saw the warning. "Fire in the sky! Repeat, _fire in the sky!"_

* * *

"Holy shit," Ajay whispered, leaning forward and watching intently as the projected images of the Shadow team closed on the ASAT Control Center. Rawne glanced at them, and then shifted his attention back toward the large battle raging at the south end of the base. He selected a small group of fighters and shifted their position to reinforce a flank that was failing under heavy GDI gunfire.

"I can't believe this is working," the intelligence agent continued. "This plan of yours is pretty smart."

"Risky, too," Rawne replied, frowning. "If the troops in the south take too many losses, they may not be able to hold the enemy long enough for the Shadows to do their job."

"Chess pieces," Jose muttered, frowning. "It is unfortunate, but we must treat these men like pieces in a game, or the entire battle will be lost."

"Use one force to draw out the enemy's pieces and then strike at your true target," Rawne replied with an icy tone. "Except possibly the Shadows, they are all dead anyway. I simply need to keep them alive long enough to carry out the mission. _Kane's _mission."

* * *

"Captain Gerard is reporting that they are being held," the corporal at the comms station replied, and Colonel Gabriel nodded. He strode across the room, and then came to a halt as klaxons began to wail.

"What the hell . . . ." Gabriel muttered, looking around the room. "Intruder alarm?"

"Sir!" came a call from across the room. "Internal sensors have IR signatures of intruders!" The man paused, and looked up. "Sir, they're on this level, heading for the control room!"

"EVA, lock down the control room!" Gabriel shouted. Seconds later, the heavy doors in the chamber sealed shut and locked in place, and the technicians had their weapons in hand.

"Lieutenant!" the colonel called, running toward the officer in charge of targeting. "Where is that Ion cannon?"

"One minute out from the target, sir," the officer replied, his face pale as he tore his gaze from the door and looked toward the console.

"Lock in that target," Gabriel ordered. After a moment, the officer nodded and started tapping keys on the computer screen.

"Hostiles right outside the door, sir!" shouted the corporal at the sensor station. "Reading energy spikes-" White light surged around the door, sparks flying into the room.

"Target locked in, Colonel!" called the lieutenant, and whatever words he was about to speak next were drowned out as the doors exploded inward. Pistols and submachineguns unloaded, bullets screaming toward the door, but as the GDI troops opened fire, several of them fell for no apparent reason. Colonel Gabriel emptied his sidearm's magazine into the breach, and ducked back behind a console, when what felt like a murderously powerful punch hammered him in the shoulder. He toppled backward, and could hear shouts and screams as his friends and subordinates died around him.

Silence finally filled the room, and Gabriel looked up as a group of armored figures swept into the room, clad in gear that seemed to be a second skin and wielding silenced rifled, along with what looked like strips of metal along their backs that hid folded up glider wings.

"Prepare the charges," commanded one of the men, his voice cool, calm, and sedate. They moved across the room, pulling small disc-like explosives out of hidden pouches. As they advanced, one of them turned and spotted the colonel where he lay.

Wordlessly, the Shadow raised his rifle and pulled the trigger.

* * *

"And that's it," Ajay said with a smile as they received the reports from the Shadow teams, which even then were retreating from Goddard. "This mission's over."

"Not yet," Rawne replied, and shifted the holographic feed to the remaining Nod soldiers. He highlighted them, and activated his microphone.

"Brother and Sisters," he spoke quietly. "You mission has been a success. Kane's blessings are now upon you. Die well, for he is watching you. Peace Through Power." The commander shut off the speaker, and sat in silence, watching the final moments of his soldiers.

GDI aircraft swept over his troops' positions, Firehawks and Orcas strafing the entrenched Nod soldiers. Missiles screamed into the buildings they were hiding within, and bodies and body parts flew from the shattered structures. V-35 Ox transports swooped over the battlefield, depositing soldiers, tanks, and armored vehicles around the Nod positions. Squads of elite riflemen rappelled down onto the rooftops of the buildings and charged inside.

Flashes of light filled the interiors and those soldiers who fought outside were surrounded. Explosions blasted Nod troops to ribbons and the surviving suicide bombers were cut down as they rushed from cover. Snipers on surrounding rooftops picked off exposed soldiers, and the radio transmitters of those inside the buildings went dead as GDI swept the buildings relentlessly.

Only when the last Nod soldier fell silent did Logan Rawne finally stir. He whispered a prayer to the men and women he had sentenced to death, and shut off the hologram.

* * *

Seven seconds before the target came into optimum firing position, Ion Cannon Two Seven stopped receiving telemetry data from Goddard Space Center. Preprogrammed with its targeting data and only a few heartbeats from its target, it no longer needed the data.

Internal capacitors began to pump energy into the central weapons system as it reached its target. External thrusters pulsed, rotating the immense, narrow satellite toward its target with millimeter precision. Onboard computers cross-indexed the stellar and geographic patterns of this patch of space a thousand times per second, confirming that it was indeed in proper position.

The central weapons system reached maximum power, and eight smaller projections extended outward from the central shaft of the main weapon. Each of these projections rotated another, smaller ion weapon toward the surface, and glowed white with pulsing energy, before discharging.

On the ground, Commander Karrde stared silently as eight slender beams descended from the clear sky, man-made lightning bolts of ionized particles that slammed into the ground around the Nod base's coordinates. The impact of the beams sent ripples of distortion through the air, and the disruption field shrouding the Nod base vanished, revealing a sprawling collection of architecture that was melting and twisting under the barrage. The Commander inhaled sharply, looking at the sheer size of the base they were dealing with, ten times larger than he'd anticipated.

In orbit, thrusters pulsed again, and ion cannon Twenty seven began to rotate, and the smaller projectors began to close in with the central shaft. Far below, the beams began to spin and spiral together, drawing closer to a single epicenter. Nod soldiers and vehicles burst into flames, and buildings were shorn apart as the shafts of destruction consolidated.

Lieutenant Wallace stood on a hilltop, overlooking dozens of shattered Nod vehicles, and clenched his fist as the enemy burned under the weight of GDI's wrath.

The beams came together in a single bolt of massive power, transforming everything in the affected area into boiling plasma. The swirling, superheated matter began to dissipate.

Then, Ion Cannon Twenty Seven unleashed the _majority_ of its stored energy,

Sergeant Havers looked up into the sky as a single blue-white bolt of searing ionized particles flashed from the heavens, struck the plasma, and everything went white. The ground shook, dust flying through the air from the shockwave of the resulting detonation.

The light faded after several seconds, and the North Carolina badlands were still.

Commander Karrde slowly exhaled as he looked upon the satellite feed. A three mile radius area had been reduced to blackened glass, the entire Nod base obliterated in a single flex of GDI firepower. Nearly every single Nod soldier, vehicle, and structure had been erased.

Ion Cannon Twenty Seven then went silent, and continued its orbit, waiting for new targeting data that would not come anytime soon.

* * *

"And so it ends," General Kilian Qatar whispered as the holographic feed lit up, explosions ripping through the upper layers of the ASAT Control Center. Sitting beside her, smiling with unfettered satisfaction and joy, Kane shook his head.

"No, my dear Kilian," he replied, leaning forward as tapping a button on his desktop. "It has only begun. Patch me through to Commander Rawne. I want to reward him for his efforts." He peered up to his second, and they shared a smile of anticipation.

The advent of the Third Tiberium War was upon them.

* * *

_Alert - Low Priority_

_Passive sensor detection: Large ionized particle spike in orbit around third planetary body._

_Analysis: Ionized particle spike generated by orbital construct. Ionized concentrations approximately 825 percent larger than previous ionization spikes. Probablity of weaponized application very high._

_Conclusion: Indigenous population in continued process of self-destruction._

_Actions: Returning to standby_ _until evidence that Ichor concentration is sufficiently high enough to support Threshold Assembly and harvesting operations. _

* * *

_**Brotherhood Information Archives - Brotherhood Infiltration Manual, Part Two: Shadow Teams**_

_The Shadow represents the pinnacle of Nod stealth science. A deadly combination of advanced martial arts and stealth training, high-tech information intrusion and evasion methodology, and the most advanced stealth systems ever devised make the Shadow warrior into the perfect intrusion and infiltration tool. Armed with special designed subsonic ammunition with concussive detonators, monomolecular, self-repairing nanotech blades, and an array of intrusion and movement tools ranging from magnetic clamps, laser-invisible rappelling rope, and radar-absorbent glider wings, they are capable of infiltrating nearly any installation or location, carrying out their objective, and escaping without detection, striking utter terror into the Brotherhood's enemies even as they slit their target's metaphorical throats._

_Of particular interest is the Shadow stealth cloak. Stealth cloaks used in the Second Tiberium War emitted a notable EM signature due to their high energy output, but the Shadow's cloak negates this with energy conservation methods. Unfortunately, the processing power of the suit's cloak is diminished, and in order to minimize power demands, the suit must be custom programmed to respond to each Shadow's movements, and the Shadow must restrict himself to many precise and specific motions while under cloak, to allow the processors to maintain the cloak without overloading. This results in Shadows having a curious, fluid, and yet strangely mechanical gait and practicing very precise and specific motions and movements, almost like a choreographed dance. Thus, Shadows are among the most disciplined Nod units, as even the slightest motion that isn't pre-recorded in their suit's computers runs the risk of revealing the warrior, even for the slightest of instances . . . ._

* * *

-

* * *

An element of the Tiberium Wars novelization that _really_ irked me was...simply how DeCandido did _nothing_ to illustrate that there really was a _world war_ going on. I mean, there's nothing to indicate the desperation of the struggle, or the damage and chaos of the war; its all glossed over. Annabelle Wu wakes up, gets on the bus, and heads down to the office, and the only indication there's even a war raging is a few people concerned about their relatives. No mention of real damages to the environment, despite the savage destruction we see in the Blue Zones in the game; hell, Wu gets shipped right out on an investigation of the Yellow Zones _when there is a war going on right there in the fucking Blue Zone!_ I mean, seriously, _what civilian is going to give a flying fuck about the problems in a Yellow Zone when there's a fucking **WORLD WAR GOING ON?**_

This doesn't even consider the reactions of the GDI soldiers in the book. McNiel I would understand being completely sumblime - he's _McNiel_, for fuck's sake - but the rest of the GDI troops are just waaaaay too calm for having their orbital headquarters destroyed and being assaulted by countless millions of Nod soldiers streaming from the Yellow Zones across the entire globe. There's no indication of the desperation or confusion of war; the assault on the San Diego convention center felt more like a routine operation in a low intensity guerilla campaign than an actual battle - the Second Battle of Fallujah, an anti-guerilla assault on a small city, was a thousand times more intense than that pathetic battle in the book, and that's a local battle in an anti-insurgent operation during a military occupation, not a world war! And then, after the battle, they roll right back to base, pat themselves on the back, and drink up. Its not like there's a thousand other conflicts an elite force like the 22nd would be needed to do at that very moment. Nope, Vega needs to go back and get his green, leadership-berift ass promoted because he was stupid enough to use his pistol instead of his fully loaded rifle.

In this story, I'm going to try to illustrate _real_ warfare: high tech, chaotic, violent, brutal, desperate, and all-encompassing. Think Black Hawk Down, but on a global scale.

Speaking of technology, that's something else I really want to hit on in this story. As you saw in this chapter, satellite technology and AIs combine to make for some pretty cool tricks and tactical evolution. I'm going to work on illustrating much of the technology of this universe, with GDI's space and air power going up against Nod's stealth and mobility.

Update: edits made when I noted a major contradiction with dialogue earlier.

Also, regarding a question asked in a recent review, you people will have to wait exactly the amount of time it takes me to build up the will, time, and inspiration to write a new chapter, edit it, and upload it. I'm taking my valuable time to write these stories and post them online, and you guys aren't paying _anything_ to read them. I update when I update, and since no one is paying me, I will update chapters when I feel like it. So yes, it may take a month for me to add another chapter to this story. It may take me a matter of hours. It may take me _years_ - some of my stuff has been sitting, not updated, for that long - but that's what happens when I'm providing my work _for no cost whatsoever to you._ Live with it.

Until next chapter . . . .


	5. Chapter IV: The Wrath of Kane

_**Chapter IV: The Wrath of Kane**_

_"I'd heard the stories. I always suspected they were lies. We would not be abandoned, not by our shepherd. But I always suspected, perhaps had a little kernel of doubt in me that maybe, just maybe, even _he_ was mortal. When I saw his face, when I looked into his eyes, and I heard his proclamation, there was no doubt left. There was only hope, vengeance, and victory."_

_-Private Mari Marona, Brotherhood of Nod, Strike Division Babylon_

The creases in General Jack Granger's forehead could be compared to a trench line in the First World War, and they were only getting deeper and more pronounced as he read over the data.

"This is a lot worse than we expected," he muttered, shaking his head. He looked up to where Sandra Telfair was supposed to be, but she had been called away to one of the communications rooms nearby. Granger's frown deepened.

Going by the shape and size of the Nod base, and counting the overwhelmingly huge ground force that had attacked Commander Karrde's troops, he estimated that Nod had a regimental-sized force at that base, and positioning such a large force so close to the borders of B-2 could only mean that they were planning a major operation.

The worst part was that even having uncovered the Nod force, any attempt to organize a major response was painfully slow. The majority of the GDI civilian and military brass were currently in orbit, on board the Philadelphia, taking part in the annual Global Energy Summit to determine how they were going to spend their resources for the next year. And with everyone up in space, getting them together to brief them on a the new developments was taking way too long, and Granger didn't have the authority to do anything beyond issue an immediate alert to standing forces in B-2 and start sending warnings to the sector commanders across the globe. GDI's capacity to react to an attack was now virtually nonexistent; and to tell the truth, GDI's capacity to quickly respond to things like this had _always_ been this lethargic. That was the problem with bureaucracy.

With that cheerful thought, the veteran officer looked up at a monitor displaying the waiting image of Commander Karrde, packing up in Camp Branson and preparing to return to Washington.

"Commander," he said, grunting. "Nod is clearly planning something, and judging by the size of that force you exposed, it's a major offensive. I've already called for an emergency DNI briefing, but the timing couldn't have been worse. The directors are all up in the Philadelphia at that damn energy summit-"

"General!" Granger turned, looking over his shoulder, and spotted a flustered Sandra Telfair hurrying into the room, alarm apparent on her face. "I'm sorry to interrupt, General, but I've just been informed-"

"What is it, Sandra?" Granger asked, apprehension gripping the old soldier. He'd seen similar looks nearly two decades before, right when TW2 had begun.

"There's been an attack on Goddard Space Center in Maryland," she breathed, and pulled out a remote from one of her uniform's pockets. The monitor across from Granger's desk shifted, the main screen, showing the swooping eagle of GDI. "We should be getting visual data in a moment."

A couple of seconds later, the screen shifted again, this time showing ground camera feeds from what looked like an urban warzone. Bodies of militia clad in fatigues and webbing were scattered across the ground, amidst men in the tan and gray urban plate armor of GDI soldiers. One of the fallen figures was a caped man in black armor plating, with a tall, cylindrical helmet. Beyond the scattered corpses and broken buildings, they could see the remnants of a tall structure, wreathed in flames.

Granger inhaled sharply, recognizing both the uniforms of the enemy soldiers and the building beyond: Nod troops had attacked Goddard and taken out the ASAT Control Center.

"Good Lord," he muttered, and gritted his teeth. "Do you realize what they've _done?_" Granger turned and looked back toward Karrde.

"Nod's just taken out the entire northeastern ASAT defense system," he snarled. "All of our anti-missile capability." Granger's inhaled sharply, trying to figure out where they were going to hit next. Nod's missile weapons had been a massive obstacle in TW2, and if they had improved their ability to deliver firepower and payloads since then . . . .

"The _Philadelphia_," Sandra whispered next to him, and Granger looked up, sudden horror and realization sweeping over him. He remembered the final battle of the Second Tiberium War, and how Nod's missile capability had included surface to space strike weapons.

The increased Nod activity at just this moment. The downgrading of Nod's threat level. The entire GDI command and control staff concentrated on the space station, in one single, easy target.

"Get me online with the _Philadelphia_!" Granger ordered, his voice echoing across the room. "We have an imminent surface to space missile attack! Sound a general alarm across B-2, and warn everyone that Nod is about to launch a full-scale offensive!"

* * *

The holographic display chimed, and Rawne reached forward, reactivating it. The light twisted and contorted into a familiar form, and the Commander bowed his head quickly in respect.

"My instincts about you were correct," spoke Kane on the other end of the transmission, his smile wide and genuine as he looked over a folder, doubtless containing some report or other from someone just as important as Rawne. He was seated behind a great desk of ebony, piled high with documents and books, framed before a great gleaming red stained glass window. "Your execution of that mission was exquisite."

"Thank you, sir," Rawne replied as Kane handed the folder off to a messenger and turned to fully face his Commander.

"I feel that it is time to reward you for your efforts, and I have the perfect honor for you, my son," Kane continued. He picked up a small object, a remote control of some kind, and his smile grew. "I've linked your battle interface with my command console. I want you to have the privilege of starting the Third Tiberium War. The war . . . to _end_ all wars."

As he spoke, Kane pressed a button atop his remote, and the holographic projection shifted, a single icon appearing over the battle controls.

Rawne looked on the symbol, and then back to Kane, whose grin seemed to expand even larger than it already was. The honor that Kane was offering him was beyond reckoning.

"Go ahead, my son," the Brotherhood's leader said. "Push the button. Inscribe your place in history with the blood of GDI!"

Rawne hesitated, awed by the prospect that lay before him, and apprehensive. He looked on the icon for a long moment, not knowing what would happen in the coming hours if he pressed the button, but he understood that there was no turning back. All of history would revolve around this moment, a simple press of a finger on a wafer of shaped light.

Rawne raised his hand and touched the icon, which gleamed blood red as his finger stroked it.

* * *

It was an unremarkable place, save for the history that hung over the land like a death shroud. In ancient times it had been the home of a series of mighty, mysterious civilizations that had venerated pharaohs and built mighty pyramids, but in more contemporary times it had been the site of numerous bloody and high-tech battles beyond those pharaohs' wildest dreams. In the First Tiberium War, it had surged back and forth under the ownership of GDI and Nod, seeing battles of all sizes and intensity. In the Second Tiberium War, however, it had taken on a critical importance, for it was within this land that treacherous General Hassan had fractured the Brotherhood of Nod, until the actions of General Anton Slavik had overthrown him and reunited the Brotherhood under the banner of Kane. But those actions paled to the immense battle that had raged in the final days of that war, as the GDI soldiers under Commander Michael McNeil had fought and bled and sacrificed so much to prevent Kane's plot to cover the entire world with Tiberium, transforming the planet into a single massive Red Zone. Why he had plotted to do this, few understood, and those few did not speak of the depths of the messiah's plots and purpose.

Cairo, in the heart of Egypt. It was littered with the detritus of war, the population having long since abandoned what came to be called a cursed land, blighted by constant war and strife. The plains outside the city were pockmarked by deep craters, blackened glass, and the ruined hulks of broken war machines. The twisted remains on Titan walkers were intermixed with the cracked and burned out forms of Tick Tanks. Bleached bones and windswept, battered and molten armor were scattered over the landscape, amidst the crumbling remnants of Nod fortifications.

In the midst of the blighted landscape, events were unfolding that would once again plunge Egypt in general, and Cairo in particular, into the center stage of another savage, merciless war.

GDI had scoured the land for Nod's missile launching facilities at the end of TW2, and had found many of them, but as was all to typical of the Brotherhood, they were too decentralized, too wide spread, and just too good at hiding their equipment and facilities. Over two decades, the Brotherhood had quietly begun rebuilding and refurbishing their missile launch facilities hidden across Egypt, and in another open, blank, unremarkable plain outside of Cairo, preparations were once more being finalized for another history-changing missile launch.

A pair of carrion birds were perched near a sand dune, when the ground suddenly began to shake. Startled, they flew away from the disturbance, as the dune vanished, the soil flowing away from a small, low dome poking out of the dirt. The dome began to open, a hole sliding apart at its center, and within that gap was a tall, slender and pointed form.

The dirt and sand continued to flow and part as the underground complex's machinery worked, revealing an immense missile, emblazoned with the scorpion tail of Nod, held within a tall latticework support frame. Alarms sounded, and the workers surrounding the missile, mere ants before its might and grandeur, took shelter. The support frames began to split apart, folding down and back into the launch facility, leaving the missile standing alone on its pad.

The landscape shuddered as the ignition codes were sent. The engines, fueled with advanced Tiberium-based chemical reactants, burst into life, an immense gout of fire blasting from the missile as it lifted off from the launching silo, the soldiers and technicians who had built it shouting prayers and praises to Kane for the deliverance that was coming. The slender shape knifed out into the sky, vanishing within minutes, carrying the destiny of Nod into the heavens.

* * *

The car bumped slightly, and Redmond Boyle cursed quietly as his coffee nearly spilled onto his lap. The Treasury Commissioner looked up, frowning, and then turned to the flatscreen before him, in the back seat of his limousine.

"Madam Director, forgive my French," the elderly, dark-skinned man said with a smile, and raised his porcelain mug to his lips.

"Understandable, Redmond," replied GDI Chief Director Kinsburg. Redmond Boyle was in his sixties, but Kinsburg was even older, a slight wisp of a gray-haired woman, but tough as nails all the same.

"Like I was saying, I'm sorry we couldn't get to the Summit in time," Boyle continued as his limo drove down the flawless reflective streets of Washington D.C. "But I'd appreciate it if you would try to keep me in the loop. I can't participate very much if all I get are sanitized digests and can only send general policy proposals and concerns."

"Well, if you were up here, it might be different," Kinsburg replied, sighing. "Security concerns-"

"-keep us from transmitting sensitive information, I know, I know," Boyle replied, shaking his head and sipping his coffee. "I'll see if I can hitch a ride on an orbiter at Andrews or Goddard in the next hour or so. I should be up there later today, just in time to catch the last day of the summit."

"I hope you do," Kinsburg added. "We need the Treasury Commissioner up here, especially considering that this is about allocating our energy and credit reserves, and that is your specialty." She paused, looking offscreen, and frowned. "Yes, Thomas, I'm coming. Tell the General I'll be on my way when I'm ready." Boyle smiled at that. No one told the Global Defense Initiative Chief Director what to do, considering that she was the most powerful person on the planet.

"Something the matter?" Boyle asked, and Kinsburg sighed again, this time in aggravation.

"General Jack Granger at the Pentagon is calling an emergency briefing," she replied.

"That worrywart in command of B-2?" Boyle asked, remembering the name from another of Kinsburg's rants. Apparently, he had tried to block the downgrade of Nod's threat level when it was proposed a few weeks back.

"The same," she said with a nod. "Apparently they found something out in Carolina that has his boxers glowing green. Probably some smuggler's camp that he's just pissing himself over. The man _actually_ believes that Kane is still alive!"

"Well, they never found the body, but still," Boyle replied with a shrug. "I think we might just need a paranoid man like him. Keeps everyone on their toes."

"The man is a fool, if you ask me, but he's got the ear of the generals and admirals," Kinsburg replied, shaking her head again. "You and I both know that they're probably going to blow this all out of proportion because of spending cutbacks, but you know how the military is."

"To be honest, we all know that Tiberium _is_ the real concern here," Boyle said, taking another sip. He glanced out the window of his limo as they passed the White House, which as usual was festooned with tourists. It hadn't served much else of a purpose after the United States was subsumed into GDI. "Which is something I wanted to bring up at the summit. I think we might be going about this the wrong way."

"What do you mean?" Kinsburg asked, and she glanced offscreen, frowning and waving her hand dismissively before looking back to Boyle.

"Well, we all know the official policy regarding Tiberium is 'containment and eradication,'" Boyle said, and smiled, planning to provide a taste of his pitch. "And I agree that it _is_ dangerous and it _is_ seriously damaging our planet, but we don't need such a hard-line stance on it. I mean, look at the Blue Zones; we built these places up using materials and energy harvested _from_ Tiberium. We put the _Philadelphia_ in orbit because of the boon Tiberium brought. We have our Ion Cannon and Sky Sentry networks because exploiting Tiberium gave us the resources to put a thousand satellites into orbit. Look at all our biggest advancements: ultra-durable polymer composites, magnetic accelerators, quantum computers, powered exoskeletal suits, reliable walker technology, routine orbital spaceflight, mass-produced vehicles and machinery of extremely high quality . . . this is stuff that wasn't even economically possible three decades ago because we weren't using the resources available to us!"

"Is this what you're going to try to sell to the Directors tomorrow, Redmond?" Kinsburg asked, and Boyle chuckled.

"All I'm saying is that we've done _all of this _thanks to Tiberium," he explained. "Our industrial ability would be a fraction of what it is now without the stuff. I think we're taking too hard a stance relating to it, and we should work on containment and _exploitation_ over containment and _eradication_. Imagine how far we could go if we could _truly_ use Tiberium as a resource for the betterment of man."

"I still don't see why you chose to be the Treasury Commissioner over being an ambassador," Kinsburg muttered, laughing. "You are quite the speaker, Redmond."

"My head is for the truth, Madam Director," Redmond Boyle replied. "Diplomats are clever liars, but I can't lie when I'm in charge of finances."

"Put that glib tongue to work tomorrow then," she replied with a nod. "I have to go now, I can't keep them waiting too long, they might try a coup if they can't get to the bathroom in time." Kinsburg reached for the controls on the other end of the line, but then stopped as a deep, booming klaxon sounded. She looked around, startled.

"Thomas, what is that-" she began to say, but as she looked around, her eyes fell on something outside the screen. The Chief Director's eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. "Oh my _God, its_-"

There was an instant of light, and the screen was washed with static.

Redmond Boyle was smart and quick, and rather than ask stupid questions or fiddle with his personal transceiver, he hit a button on his laptop.

"EVA, what just happened?" he demanded, and his personal AI went to work, responding almost instantly.

"Communications with the _Philadelphia_ are offline," the female voice replied. "Rerouting. Standby." Several seconds passed. "Secondary communications offline."

"Access the defense network, give me anything you can find," Boyle ordered. The AI processed for a half second before responding.

"Traffic over Global MilNet has increased one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven percent over the last twenty minutes. General alerts are being issued across the planet. Approximately eighty-four percent of traffic consists of queries regarding loss of contact with the Philadelphia. Standby." Apprehension gripped Boyle's heart as he heard those words, and remembered the Chief Director's expression, one of raw fear.

"Three minutes ago a general alert regarding potential Nod attack was issued by General Jack Granger from the Pentagon," EVA said after a few seconds. "There was also a warning against possible missile attack against the Philadelphia and other orbital assets. Thirty seven minutes ago a general alert was issued regarding an attack on Goddard Space Center and the ASAT Control Center, with global control over anti-missile capability lost seven minutes afterward."

The coffee mug in Boyle's hand fell from slack fingers, and he stared at the computer screen in mute shock. That lasted for only a few moments, and he reached forward, tapping the intercom.

"Matthew!" he shouted to his driver. "Locate the nearest military shelter and get us there as fast as you can!"

As the limo slowed and began to turn, the driver hearing the urgency in his boss' voice and responding, sirens began to wail across the zone.

* * *

**Philadelphia Uplink Terminated.**

Alexander Karrde stared at the screen of his Comcom in confusion for a moment, as the warning sign glowed at the top of the console screen. He looked up and around the loading bay for the Ox transport as the troops from 4th battalion were boarding, the remnants of the scout force finally returning to Camp Branson. There was no time for debriefing, as General Granger had called for him to return to Washington immediately.

"EVA, reroute," Karrde said, and remembered what Granger had said before he'd cut off the connection. Goddard Space Center was hit by Nod, and the ASAT system was offline, but that had only been thirty minutes ago.

A chill ran up Karrde's spine.

"EVA, ignore reroute. Access _Philadelphia_ update logs within the last three minutes." The Comcom whirred faintly, and beeped. "Analyze logs." A quarter of a second passed as the AI worked.

"Philadelphia damage-control EVA unit reported massive thermal, electromagnetic, and radiation alerts across the station for exactly point one three seconds before all communications were terminated. Philadelphia sensor network detected approaching object with propulsion and radar profile eighty seven percent consistent with a surface to space ballistic missile approximately thirteen seconds before communications termination."

Karrde was silent, the implications stunning him for several moments, before he looked away. After another couple of seconds, he pressed a finger into the radio bead in his ear.

"EVA, battalion channel," he ordered, and waited a heartbeat. "Attention, 4th Battalion, this is Commander Karrde."

All of the soldiers in the Ox looked up at him at the same time, his voice sounding in their ears. He knew he had the attention of every man and woman in his force, and he paused for a moment, not sure what to say next. Finally, he settled on the straight and blunt.

"Thirty minutes ago, Nod launched a raid on Goddard Space Center, and took out our ASAT defense system," he explained. "Within the last few minutes, communications with the _Philadelphia _were lost. Last transmissions indicate an incoming ballistic missile on their local radar, and the final logs were consistent with a nuclear detonation."

He looked around the room, letting that sink in, and saw the shocked and horrified expressions of the younger troopers, mixed with the grim, but no less surprised faces of the veteran soldiers.

"We are under orders to return to Washington D.C.," Karrde continued. "General Granger has issued a general alert that we may be facing a major Nod attack. What we found out here may have just been the beginning. Finish loading up, double time! We've got to get moving!"

* * *

The pirated video feed from one of the sentry satellites told everything. It had once been a tall, slender spire of gray-white metal, surrounded by small spacecraft and orbital satellites, rotating serenely within the depths of space. That appearance had belied the malignancy within, for it was within that wretched space station that GDI had oppressed the people of the world, and Rawne watched with glee as the missile streaked past, stabbing into the heart of the _GSS Philadelphia_.

"The wheels of war are in motion, our destiny within grasp," Kane spoke over the radio as Rawne saw the fire blossom, ripping through the space station and reducing it to glittering, flaming fragments that screamed across space, a bloody smear of heat and light that heralded the dawn of the greatest battle the world would see.

"The _Philadelphia_ was only the beginning," he continued, the image on the holographic display shifting to show the Brotherhood's leader. He stood up, leaning forward over his desk, a predatory gleam in his eyes, his voice taut with intensity. "Our forces will sweep like a great plague across the Earth. Every Blue Zone will feel our _wrath_." Rawne nodded, imagining the righteous carnage the would soon inflict upon their foes.

"What would you ask of me?" he asked, and Kane smiled.

"For you, my son, I have reserved the most important task of all: taking the Northeastern Blue Zone. Our armies flow forth even now, but you are already in place to stab the hidden dagger of our Brotherhood into the heart of our massed enemies. A secret attack force is waiting your command; you must show no mercy, for GDI deserves _none._"

* * *

Colonel Jason Valencia sat back in the pilot's couch, letting the cybernetic feeds in his wrist connect to the control computers of the aircraft. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them wide, holding them still. Laser projectors mounted on the brim of his pilot's helmet activated, scanning his eyes and locking onto his retinas. Images flowed into his mind, showing the complex schematics of his wide-bodied craft. Soft cloth pressed around the edges of his eyes as he activated the implants in his eyelids, locking them open. Chemical pumps in the helmet gently hissed, pumping a soothing fluid into his opened eyes to keep them from drying out during the mission.

He ran through the startup checklists swiftly, and as he did so, he could feel the heavy, familiar thrum of the bomber's engines powering up. Tiberium fuel was pumped into the fuel tanks as the array of heavy ordnance was stowed in his craft's bomb bays. In ordinary close-air support missions, he would carry a single guided missile and light thruster tanks, as he'd be operating very close to the front, but today, he was conducting a long-range bombing run that harkened back to the savage Soviet attacks against the Allies in Greece and Germany in World War II, nearly a century ago.

"Damocles Lead to Damocles Wing," he called as he finished his checklist, and the roar of his engines intensified. "Sound off."

The next minute was filled with calls over the radio, one after the other, fifty-two bomber pilots reporting in to the leader of the strike operation. As they finished, Valencia brought up the control tower he was stationed at.

"Damocles Lead to Tower," he said calmly. "All Vertigos check out. Damocles Wing ready to launch on your mark."

_"Copy that, Damocles Lead,"_ came the cool female voice of the air tower's controller. "Clear to launch in five seconds." The countdown began, and Valencia settled back into his seat. The seconds passed, and he tensed as it ended, his wrist twitching. The engines burst into life, the wide-winged aircraft jerking and lifting up into the air, its hover-jets activating and lifting it off its pod. Valencia waited two heartbeats, and then gunned the engines, singing his Vertigo around toward the heading he had entered into the navigational computers hours ago.

He looked out through the glass-lined cockpit, and on his radar, the other fifty-one Vertigo bombers came to match his heading forming up all around him . . . and then vanished.

"Damocles Lead to Damocles Wing," he called over the radio. "Your targets have already been uploaded. We are now observing radio silence. Good luck. Peace Through Power."

* * *

"Hey, wake up."

"Faghlmph," came the chipper reply from Emir, and Fasood frowned. The driver reached down and scooped up the other soldier's helmet, and threw it at the napping man. Emir grunted and raised his head, giving Fasood a withering look as he stood at the entrance to their tent.

"What?" he demanded, yawning. "I was enjoying that."

"No time to sleep," Fasood replied with a grin. "Its time for war." Emir's eyes widened, and he sat up, grabbing his helmet.

"Its _always_ time for war," he replied with a pleased snarl, and stood up. The driver grabbed his gear and quickly donned it, and they rushed outside.

"So, the signal came?" Emir asked, and Fasood nodded. The other driver tossed him a small flatscreen, which Emir flicked on. It only had a short recording saved to it, of a jerky ground camera peering up into the sky, but an unmistakable sliver was visible: the Philadelphia. As Emir watched, there was a burst of light, and the sliver vanished. With a laugh, he threw the flatscreen back to his partner as they neared the camouflage netting.

"We've been waiting for this for years," Fasood remarked as they pulled the netting away, to reveal what lay beneath: a pair of long, slender, armored motorcycles, rugged and durable vehicles with mounted grenade and missile launchers on the rear.

"Ever since we were Zone Runners, right?" Emir replied, climbing onto the back of his bike and firing up the GPS and targeting systems.

"Damn straight," the other man replied, and revved his engine. "I'm good. You?"

"Ready to roll," Emir replied, and they jetted out from their hiding place, blasting across the open, rugged landscape of eastern Tennessee, and headed for the rendezvous with the rest of their hidden attack force as it assembled.

* * *

"And in global news today, the annual GDI Energy Summit is still underway aboard the space station _Philadelphia_," came the remarkably ordinary tone of William Frank over the car's installed flatscreen. The driver glanced at it as he came to a halt at a stoplight, and frowned. William Frank wasn't a particularly outstanding news pundit, but he did a good job of parroting W3N's news to the general public, while letting the more colorful reporters and anchors do their business with their specific shows.

"Colorful" did a great job of describing Colonel Nick Parker, retired war hero and now conservative, military-oriented pundit who routinely appeared on W3N's various spotlights. After all, one didn't go through two wars, one of them as a black ops commando who had rightfully earned the codename "Havoc" without developing some colorful traits.

Parker glanced at the news, knowing it was going to be the same old boring stuff they usually showed, but following it anyway. He was a news junkie now, battling people on the air with words as furiously as he'd fought with weapons in TW1.

"Our own Cassandra Blair reports on the landmark goals set for this year's summit," Frank continued. "Cassandra?"

The image on the flatscreen on the dashboard shifted, to show the pleasant face of Cassandra Blair, a British news anchor who worked at the local W3N office in Washington. As usual, he red-haired woman wasted no time.

"When top administrators return to work here tomorrow," she explained, gesturing behind her to the Admin Building that GDI had built a decade ago for the planet-bound directors. "They're hoping to unveil a new fiscal agenda. According to Director Kinsburg, one of the key talking points for this year's summit is resource allocation from defense to ecology."

Parker growled in anger at that. He had plenty of words to say regarding _that_ mentality. It was that same complacency that had landed them in TW2, thinking that Hassan would keep Nod under control. That same complacency had cost GDI their best all-terrain weapons systems, including the Titans and the Mammoth IIs, replaced with the more "economic" Predator MBTs and Mammoth 27s. While there was thing to be said about the old-school tank warfare tactics vs. walker technology, it was a mistake in Parker's eyes to just scrap most of the walker designs and go back to a mostly treaded and wheeled mechanized force. Half the reason he'd retired was out of disgust because GDI would have reverted to cheaper ground armies rather than adapt and pay the money to further improve walker technology to compensate for their weaknesses.

"With the eradication of Tiberium is now viewed as a more pressing concern, rather than the containment of-" Cassandra was continuing, but she was suddenly cut off as the image shifted back to William Frank, whose expression was shocked and pale.

"Ex-excuse the interruption, but we're receiving breaking news on the _Philadelphia_," he said, flustered. The screen again shifted, this time showing a shaky ground camera, which was centered on the orbiting space station in question. As Parker watched, a bolt of light shot out of one corner of the camera's view, streaking toward the Philadelphia.

"Son of a . . . ." the retired soldier whispered, recognizing the shape and flare of a surface-to-space missile as it impacted the _Philadelphia_, and the image became nothing but glowing with fury, followed by the shattered, burning remnants of the station shooting off into the blank depths of space.

"Apparently, just moments ago, there was an accident," William Frank continued, and Parker glared at him in amazement as his apparent density. "Its . . . obviously, something has gone terribly wrong. We're going to do or best to confirm what we're all seeing, but at this time, we have no idea what could possibly have caused a tragedy of this magnitude."

"Shit, how dumb are you, Frank?" Parker snarled, and heard the sound of a car honking its horn behind him. He snarled and sent the driver a single finger in response, and then the ground shook. Parker looked up, and saw high plume of smoke rising toward the center of downtown DC, and the flickers of aircraft shooting through the air before vanishing again, something he knew all too well.

"-don't know if you can hear me, but its incredible!" came a shout over the flatscreen, and Parker looked down, to see Cassandra Blair standing amidst swirling smoke and dust flying past her, people running everywhere in the background.

"There is so much smoke that you can't see more than ten meters," she was saying, looking back behind her as sirens sounded. "There's debris falling all over the-" Her next words were cut off as another detonation flashed somewhere behind her, and the camera cut out, flashing back to Frank's shocked expression.

"Unbelievable," he was muttering, and Parker's mind was racing. They were under attack, the _Philadelphia_ had been destroyed, and only one force could have been responsible for-

His thoughts ended as static flashed over the flatscreen, replacing the image of William Frank with a familiar figure, bathed in red light, whose image made Parker's heart skip a beat and his blood run cold.

"No way," Nick Parker whispered, even though he had been one of the most ardent supporters of the theory that the man was still alive.

"_The destruction of the Philadelphia was not an accident," _spoke the smiling specter of Kane.

* * *

"Good Lord," General Jack Granger whispered as he saw the pirated feed, crackling with static but its contents undeniably clear. Every single public broadcast station was seeing this, and every MilNet receiver was picking the transmission up.

"_It was a merciful bullet to the head of a malignant ideology." _

"Kane," Sandra Telfair breathed beside him.

* * *

"Is that-" Corporal Mitchell Colt whispered. The image was being transmitted to their Ox's transceiver, and Karrde had immediately sent the pirate feed to his troops to alert them.

"_It was the death of fear and the birth of hope!"_

"Yes, Corporal," Lieutenant Koen replied, his face locked up in shocked, stony stillness. "That's who you think it is."

* * *

"_Rejoice, children of Nod!"_

"Oh my," whispered Redmond Boyle as he watched the news feed. He put down his coffee, and grabbed a bottle of cognac he kept in his limousine's cabinet.

* * *

"_The blood of your oppressors _will_ flow, and fifty years of tyranny will finally end."_

Private Evan Blunt was sitting in the barracks at Zone Security Station Seven Bravo along the North Carolina border, staring at the television screen in shock. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Kane was someone from history, like Stalin or Romanov; there was no way that he was alive . . . right?

"Arm up!" came a shout outside, and Blunt looked up, to see the other members of his Zone Security platoon running about outside. Belatedly, he could hear the alert sirens wailing, and he grabbed his helmet, slipping it on and sealing it.

"Incoming!" came another shout, and the Private rushed outside the barracks and down the corridor connecting to the massive exterior gates. The radio was alive with shouts of confusion and alarm, but Blunt could make no sense of it until he reached the gates, where a dozen more Zone Security troopers were crouched, peering out over the Yellow Zone horizon nervously. At first, Blunt couldn't see anything along the hazy horizon, even with his helmet's magnification, until he realized he was looking at _clouds of dust._

"Holy shit," he whispered, a second before a beam of blood red light cut through the haze and slammed into the gates directly overhead. Even as the Zone Security troopers were recoiling from that blast, explosions hammered the gate and the wall, missiles and tank shells screaming into the barrier from the distance. From the depths of the swirling dust, Blunt could see the advancing forms of hundreds of shapes, and terror replaced shock as he watched the oncoming swarms of Nod vehicles.

* * *

"_Transformation is coming."_

"_You ready, man?" _Fasood's voice echoed in Emir's ears, and he grinned as the wind whipped past him, his fingers tight over his attack motorcycle's handlebars. He could hear the roar of engines all around him as the other Nod vehicles rolled around and behind him. Dust rolled up around his force, and he had to use the infrared sensors to even see through the clouds.

"I was born ready!" Emir shouted back, laughing, and he gunned his bike's throttle, sending it peeling away from the leading edge of the mechanized army descending upon the pathetic GDI defenders cowering behind their walls. The rest of the attack bikes peeled away as well, shooting across the badlands, and at a single spoken signal, they all tapped a button on their left handlebars, arming their missile launchers.

"For Kane!" Emir screamed as he let fly, the bike shaking as the rocket launchers on the rear of the machine unleashed their payloads.

* * *

"_A new day will dawn."_

The city shook and burned, smoke shooting out of the destroyed buildings. The sky was split by the displaced air as the Vertigo bombers swooped across the breadth of Washington D.C., appearing and disappearing amidst the swirling dust and the falling warheads.

Colonel Valencia heard the soothing, inspiring words of the Messiah in his ears as he came about, the rest of his wing soaring above the city. There were no radar contacts, and sealed inside the cockpit he couldn't hear the Vertigo bombers maneuvering dangerously close to the rooftops of the city, some of the craft even going as far as to dive beneath the rooftops and strafe the streets, buzzing panicked civilians and firing scattered gunfire from their rear turrets into the civilians.

This was not a surgical strike mission. Though he was trained for such attacks, in this case Valencia and his Damocles Wing pilots - and the thousands of other pilots across the globe - had only one mission: to hammer the undeniable terror of Nod's wrath into the complacent GDI populace.

He looked over the city once more as he came about, picking out another important looking structure. The main GDI administration headquarters had been destroyed minutes ago, but outlying buildings may have been spared, so he moved toward that part of the city. The holographic projectors shifted to show several intact outbuildings around the central admin structure, and Valencia picked a target. The cloaking sheath that shrouded his bomber faded for a moment as he opened the bomb bay and deployed a single warhead, and then swiftly ducked back under the cloak.

This is a massacre, he thought with a grin, for GDI was not even beginning to retaliate. If the plan held true, then they would never be able to mount an airborne counterattack either, at least not immediately.

"_Damocles Seven, taking fire! I'm hit! I'm hit!"_ came a call over the radio, the first transmission from Valencia's force since they had cut across GDI's heartland. The pilot rolled his fighter and pulled back, coming around toward the point of origin of the transmission. His heart sank as he saw one of the bombers, its cloak broken and wing aflame as tracer fire streaked toward the plane from below. He heard Damocles seven scream as his Vertigo fell apart, perforated by hundreds of bullets and set ablaze.

Colonel Valencia remained silent, pulling away from the area where the anti-air turret had been hidden, and sought out a new target. They would remember Damocles Seven later; they had infidels to massacre now.

* * *

"_The future . . . is _ours_."_

Commander Logan Rawne climbed out of the light raiding buggy and looked to the north, over the trees and tall buildings flanking the facility beyond. He raised his binoculars to his eyes, watched for a moment, and then nodded as he heard Kane's voice in his ears. Before him was a wide expanse of buildings and open spaces, the rolling echoes of alarms sounding across the complex He could see dozens of aircraft, from Firehawk attack jets and Orca attack craft to V-35 Ox transports, all warming up or lifting off as humans scurried about the spacious airbase.

"All warriors, advance," he ordered into his radio, and engines revved around him as attack motorcycles, heavily-armed buggies, and trucks carrying hundreds of righteous warriors rolled forward, bringing the wrath of the Brotherhood down upon the unsuspecting infidels within Andrews Air Force Base.

* * *

"Well, that's just great," Nick Parker muttered, and reached for the glove compartment of his car, suddenly very happy that GDI allowed retired soldiers to carry a more liberal selection of personal arms than ordinary citizens. He hefted a sub-machinegun, and loaded it as another bomb exploded nearby. He kicked open the door to his car and emerged, weapon in hand.

He may have been officially retired, in his seventies, and twenty percent of him was replaced with cybernetics, but Colonel Nick "Havoc" Parker was still quite capable of waging war, and war had come to GDI once again.

* * *

Commander Alexander Karrde watched as the image of Kane's smiling, insane face vanished, and he turned, looking around the troop bay at his men. He didn't need to say anything, for they all knew it just as well as he did, even as the reports starting filtering in and filling up his Comcom's screen. Andrews Air Force Base requesting reinforcements. Two dozen points on the western walls of B-2 being attacked. Stealthed bombers assaulting Washington D.C.

The Third Tiberium War had begun.

* * *

_**GDI WeapTech Report: Analysis and Recommendations on the Usage of Mechanized Walkers (Date 07/12/2039) - Excerpt**_

_In the mid 2010s, the widespread adoption of heavy mechanized walker units (sometimes referred to colloquially to as "mecha") was heralded as the dawn of a new age of warfare, dominated by armies of highly mobile, legged war machines that could traverse most terrains with ease and deliver enormous firepower. This was implemented at all levels of the Global Defense Initiative's military: the light, high-speed Wolverine powered armor, the hulking Titan battle walkers, the long-ranged Juggernaut artillery walkers, and the immense quadrupedal Mammoth Mark II. Concerns regarding maintenance and possible weaknesses in the legs were dismissed as overblown. During the Second Tiberium War the legged war machine of GDI saw its first large-scale action against the "primitive" Brotherhood of Nod's conventional wheeled and tracked armies, and this combat was telling._

_By virtue of their heavy armor and all-terrain capability, GDI's heavy war walkers proved quite effective, especially in urban situations and on broken and uneven terrain. However, during the war the many weaknesses of the walkers were highlighted, and the results were sobering to those who had advocated mechanized walker technology. Though their height and maneuverability in terrain that confounded tanks gave them excellent lines of fire and the ability to flank and maneuver around Nod's traditionally more maneuverable forces, that same height made them a clear and easy target for Nod gunners, and walkers drew a high amount of incoming fire, often so much that the heavy battle armor could be penetrated through the sheer number of impacts (a close analogy being a mob beating a car with sledgehammers until its engine died from sheer blunt trauma). In close combat, the walkers also consistently suffered from direct attacks against their legs, including Nod commandos and fanatical infantry troopers who could get close and destroy the leg joints with shaped charges or missile launchers, toppling the mighty war machines. These weaknesses were combined with the severe maintenance costs of such complex machinery, which turned out to be prohibitive even with aggressive harvesting of Tiberium to fund the war effort. It is safe to say that GDI won TW2 not _because_ of the effectiveness of the Titan and the Mammoth Mark II, but in _spite _of it. The heavy armor, railguns, and mobility did not make up for its extremely expensive disadvantages._

_Though a number of military officers reject the findings in this report, we have concluded that a more conventional force of treaded tanks and wheeled support vehicles - such as the one we are currently fielding today - would have served much more effectively in TW2. Though several designs have been adapted to other duties - such as the Wolverine evolving into the Zone Trooper armor - the implementation of walkers as effective frontline war machines is currently not feasible. The Juggernaut artillery platform's capacity to remain mobile and out of direct contact with the enemy, however, avoids a number of disadvantages of the Titan and Mammoth Mark II, and thus it retains a walker chassis, but main battle duties are now taken by the Predator MBT and the Mammoth Mark III HBT._

_Curiously, GDI InOps has scattered reports that the Brotherhood of Nod has begun to field a fleet of walker units, in spite of their firsthand experience with defeating them in TW2. One must wonder at their agenda, for it makes no sense for Nod to adapt walker technology as a primary battlefield weapon unless they have managed to get around many of the inherent weaknesses of the walker design . . . but then again, Nod has always shown a remarkable and disturbing willingness to ignore safety and reliability concerns in favor of speed, mobility, and firepower . . . ._

* * *

-

* * *

Why yes, there is a Star Trek reference in this chapter's title. How could you tell?

Expect everyone's favorite cheesy action movie hero commando-turned-angry-pundit to play a big role in this story. Havoc is too awesome in his corniness to _not_ be put to good use. I'm also going to work on fleshing out GDI's political side, though that process just became a whole lot simpler with the destruction of the Philadelphia. :P

Now, for more lambasting of DeCandidio's pile of epic bullshit that was that novel. The novel did _absolutely nothing _to show the benefits and use of Tiberium. While it is an incredibly Bad Thing to the planet and to humans, it is also a basic resource which everyone uses to generate power and supply minerals, yet the novel has a singularly negative approach to Tiberium, with no one ever being shown to use it. To add to the stupidity, Tiberium is apparently 100 percent fatal in the book; Tiberium mutants like the Forgotten are convienently nonexistent, and mutated Tiberium lifeforms are also pointedly missing - for fuck's sake, DeCandido was even idiotic enough to label a Tiberium Floater _as a Scrin unit!_ I threw the book across the room when I read that, because it _proved_ he knew nothing about the Tiberium universe, and was just hired on for the job because he could spin endless drabble about news reporters. Don't even get me started on the scene with the sapling being killed by the radiation shower - one of the most pointedly useless scenes in the book that was also blatantly stupid and completely unscientific, as radiation does not do that to plants so quickly and if rad-showers were that bad they never would have bothered planting the sapling in the first place. Not to mention the stupidity of having to destroy anything affected by Tiberium when GDI has sonic emitters that can destroy Tiberium at its specific resonance frequency - apparently no one in GDI thought to use these wonderful sonic emitters in hospitals or to decontaminate material that may have been infected by Tiberium. I can see the conversations now:

"Yes ma'am, we have to destroy all of your clothes, but your other personal effects, which were just as affected by being in the Yellow Zone as everything else, can go right on through, even though they might be infected as well. We'll also decontaminate you with chemicals even though our sonic emitters can do it all without embarassing you, but we're too stupid to bother doing that regularly to people in the Yellow Zone hospitals, because we need a dramatic scene where some homeless guy and a little boy dies. I sure hope we appoint someone smart to head GDI now that all the idiots got blown up on the Philadelphia!"

How the hell did GDI survive that long while being that fucking stupid?_ For fuck's sake._

And next chapter, I'll shoot down his horrid use of and complete lack of knowledge regarding military tactics and weapons research! (even more so than I already have...I'm looking at YOU, Mr. GDI-rifle-with-underslung-railgun...)

Until next chapter . . . .


	6. Chapter V: Hell March

_**Act I**_

_**Chapter V: Hell March**_

_"There was a little girl. Maybe, eight years old? I dunno. She'd lost both her legs. Just kept staring at them. Little stumps, cauterized by fire somehow. A little girl, all alone, looking at where her legs were, not understanding anything. Just . . . staring. Blank little eyes. Staring."_

_-Anonymous GDI soldier, Seattle, Washington _

Missiles roared over burning vehicles and slammed into the base of the gleaming tower. The armor piercing warheads punched through the outer walls and detonated deep inside, ripping apart structural foundations. Gaping holes appearing in the sides of the central control tower as people attempted to flee, only to be gunned down by roaring machineguns and assault rifles. The tall building shuddered, and as it suffered under the constant hail of missiles and shells, chinks of it rained down on the ground, before the immense structure finally toppled over. It hung in the air for an instant, and as the attackers watched, it slowly fell, slamming into the concrete with an earthshaking roar, fracturing and collapsing under its own weight.

A throaty cheer went up from the soldiers of Nod, the Brothers and Sisters overrunning the unprepared GDI base. Tall railgun-armed watchtowers and squat Guardian cannons sat impotent, their power severed by Nod infiltrators, leaving the GDI airfields open and helpless before Nod's onslaught. Idle Firehawk attack jets and Orca aircraft sat on the tarmac, destroyed or scrapped at leisure by the advancing Nod soldiers, and those that were attempting to lift off were shattered under missile and machinegun barrages. Ruined hulks of crashed fighters and Ox transports littered the fields, amidst the fallen bodies of hundreds of soldiers. The GDI troops fought as best they could, but without their defenses and against the sheer numbers of Nod troops flooding the base, they were helpless.

Commander Logan Rawne watched, a gleeful smile on his face, the images of his men flowing before him like water, holographic displays dancing in front of his eyes. True warriors of Nod, who obeyed his orders without question or fear, pawns who trusted in his leadership; they did their jobs well. With the control tower destroyed, any hope of directing the GDI aircraft or coordinating base defense had already vanished. With Nod electronic countermeasures and interference flooding the radio bands, the GDI infidels were lost, confused, and broken. Nod looters and salvaging crew were following the advancing front, stripping the GDI base of any useful material.

His personal bodyguard detail followed him as he strode across the remnants of the base, well behind the advancing front of his main assault force. Heavily armed men in full body armor, the bodyguards resembled the frontline soldiers Nod had employed in the Second Tiberium War. With large numbers of disaffected people swelling the ranks of the Brotherhood over the last few years, it had become impossible to arm most of their troops to the same degree that the elite Nod soldiers had been in TW2; the bodyguard and special forces details were one of the few units still as well-armed as they had in Nod's past, with the majority of Nod troopers forming light infantry reminiscent of the Soviet and Allied armies of World War II.

An attack buggy could be heard approaching from behind, and Rawne turned, to see the vehicle closing. It paused next to him, the machinegunner in the back sweeping the area with his weapon as the vehicle's passenger climbed out.

"Commander!" the man said, circling around the vehicle. The insignia on his shoulder marked him as a Corporal, and he was carrying a datapad. "Sir, new dispatch from Ajay." With a nod Rawne took the pad, and hooked it to his personal command computer. Holographic details flashed across his line of sight, and he nodded again.

"Looks like our next target is Washington D.C. itself," he mused. "We should be able to hit the capital within the next twenty four hours, assuming our main assault forces continue their current advance." He looked up at the sky, frowning, and then peered in the general direction of the advancing assault. All he could see among the buildings and burning aircraft were plumes of smoke and tracer fire cutting across the hazy air. According to the holographic readouts, they had finished clearing the southern and eastern parts of Andrews Air Base, and were in the process of smashing the Orca maintenance and repair facilities on the north end of the base, as well as sweeping for and disposing of any GDI survivors of the initial attack. Within the hour they should be ready to withdraw, and with the entire Blue Zone under attack, GDI wouldn't be able to mobilize a counterattack, especially considering Andrews was their largest and most important air base in the region.

Rawne looked up and started issuing orders to his men, when the attack buggy next to him exploded, and he was launched backward, bowling over one of his own bodyguards.

* * *

The gate was hammered with force that made Private Blunt's bones shake as he cowered behind cover. Hundreds of missiles slammed into the wall around the Zone Security checkpoint, the roar of screaming engines and blasting detonations drowning out all other sound, even the panicked screaming of his own platoon. Rivers of blue-white and scarlet laser beams crisscrossed over the gate, boiling away sections of heavy ceramic and armor as the Nod armored force rolled onward.

There was no possibility of returning fire. A couple of years ago the Zone Security checkpoints had been fully armed with railguns and Guardian cannons, but those had been removed before Blunt had even joined. Now they had a couple of machineguns mounted in watchtowers, which had been the first targets of the Nod armor assault.

Blunt clutched his rifle tightly, trying to think of anything he could do against the relentless assault. There was movement next to him, and he looked up in time to see Private Jacobs speared by a scarlet bolt of light that sliced him in half across the waist, vaporizing a third of his body. Blunt found himself staring at the bisected remains of the soldier, unable to tear his eyes away from the smoking remains.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he jerked, spinning around, to see Sergeant Keith, commander of his platoon.

"LT's dead! We need to pull out!" The words came in over his short-range radio and directly into his ears, and even then Blunt had a hard time hearing them. The private hesitated, and then nodded, and with another order from Keith, the Zone Security detachment broke away from the barriers, fleeing back inside the shelter of the walls.

Within a few moments, the surviving thirty-odd soldiers were jogging down the long internal passageways inside the outer walls, back toward the motor pool. The structure shook under the savage barrage, and the men were burdened with wounded - surprisingly few, but most of those hit in the opening barrage were beyond help.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Corporal David shouted as they entered a wide, open hangar lit by fluorescent lamps. Three armored personnel carriers and a pair of Pitbulls were sitting in the room, waiting for them.

"Must have been thousands of them," another trooper remarked, and Blunt nodded.

"Platoon, listen up," Sergeant Keith said over the radio, and the troopers looked up at his call.

"Just got a flash from Colonel Anderson," he added, referring to the commander of the local garrison brigade. "Nod's hitting us all across the Zone. We've got some new kind of stealth bombers tearing up everything inside the walls. We're falling back to defensive positions inside the wall. Get everyone on those APCs, we're going to need every weapon we have when Nod breaks through."

The troops quickly moved out, boarding the APCs. Ramps opened in the sides and rear of the six-wheeled, low-set vehicles, and the men clambered onto the vehicles. Blunt sat down on one of the padded seats, waiting for the rest of the troops to get on board. Within moments, the transports and the Pitbulls were starting up, and began to roll out of the garage. The wall was still shaking and shuddering under the barrage a few minutes later, when the remnants of the platoon burst out of the darkness of the wall interior and back out into the open air of the Blue Zone.

Blunt tapped a panel next to his head, and a firing slit opened in the side of the APC's armor. He peered out, and stared at the destruction he could see. Smoke was rising throughout the Zone, dust and fire filling the air as Nod bombers struck and fled. Sporadic anti-air fire was lancing up at them as GDI defenders reacted to the attack. Missiles and artillery arced over the top of the outer wall, slamming into civilian buildings all around them, and panicking people were running in every direction, abandoning their cars in the streets as the Nod marauders attacked indiscriminately.

Within a couple of minutes the APCs had reached the area Keith had been ordered to fall back to, a series of apartment complexes just inside the wall, with a clear line of sight on the checkpoint that was being hammered into dust. The vehicles came to a halt, and the troops disembarked into a whirlwind of half-controlled insanity as nearby GDI soldiers rushed to fortify their position in any way they could.

"Get those power generators set up!" shouted a man with a colonel's pins as the troops filed out of their vehicles. The man was fiddling with a Comcom and waving his hands frantically as a six-wheeled, heavy-duty truck settled into place on the center of the street. GDI soldiers and engineers hurried past as the truck's crew began to unpack the vehicle, converting it into a forward power plant and weapons control center. Transport vehicles laden with prefabricated weapons emplacements and towed guns rolled through the area as GDI infantry dug out foxholes, hastily assembled makeshift bunkers out of instacrete, and hurried into the buildings to set up weapons.

"Platoon, on me!" Sergeant Keith shouted, gathering the Zone Security troopers. "There's an aid station being set up fourteen klicks south of here; Second Squad, load the wounded into the casevac transports. Everyone else is with me." The troops moved out, grabbing the injured and carrying them through the chaos toward the waiting casualty evacuation trucks while the remainder followed their leader, who hurried into one of the nearby apartment complexes. Civilians were being herded out by GDI troopers, carrying their precious belongings, while soldiers moved through the building. Keith flashed the squads quick orders over their helmet HUDs, and Blunt was moving inside an apartment on the second floor, setting up a field of fire inside someone's bedroom.

He pushed some curtains out of the way and opened the apartment's window, and found himself looking down the street as his fireteam set up elsewhere in the apartment. Private Agels set up a light machinegun in the next room as someone else dropped canisters of ammunition on a table in the kitchen.

"Blunt, how's your ammo?" called Corporal Simons, and Blunt looked down, checking his gear.

"Don't think I even fired my weapon yet," he replied, and managed a strained chuckle. "Uh, seven full mags, but I don't have any frags, flamers, or smoke." Simons handed him a pair of fragmentation grenades, and behind them, another soldier hurried into the apartment, dropping an extra pack full of ammunition on a table in the main living room before taking position at another window.

Blunt looked out the window, trying to still his hammering heart as he heard the roar of Nod artillery ripping into the wall in front of them.

"Christ, its like the First Tiberium War," Simons muttered as a group of Predator tanks rolled into place below them, behind instacrete fortifications. An engineering detail was hastily setting up a Guardian cannon nearby, behind another set of sandbags and instacrete barriers, and rapid-fire railguns were being readied, hooked up to the command and control center that had been set up in the middle of the street.

"We won that one, too, didn't we?" Agels remarked, checking his machinegun, and Simons grunted as Blunt listened over the radio as GDI desperately tried to assemble their defense, and waited anxiously for the Nod forces to breach the barriers.

* * *

"Heath, stop us here," Master Sergeant Julian Davis ordered as he peered through the forward sensors of the turret. A dozen different sensors fed data to him at once, and he flicked through them quickly.

"Stopping," replied the Predator's driver, sitting beside Davis. Private First Class Michael Heath slowed the Predator Main Battle Tank as it neared the firing line with the rest of Golf Company. Davis settled into his command chair, and pulled his head back from the sensor displays, peering around the cramped interior of his Predator. Behind him, the Predator's gunner, Corporal Wilkins, drummed his hands nervously on the side of his control console for the heavy cannon that took up half the turret's space.

Ahead of them were a series of hastily constructed barriers and bunkers, the GDI soldiers having only a matter of minutes to assemble their defensive position. It had been less than half an hour since the open transmission from Kane, and in that time Davis and his tank crew had scrambled to get their Predator ready for battle and to the front. Half the vehicle's checklist still needed to be finished, but they had no time to run through the entire maintenance routine; they barely had time to get their tank platoon to the defensive point Colonel Anderson had been assembling.

"Wilkins, we're loaded?" Davis ordered, and the gunner grunted, nodding.

"Main cannon's loaded, sarge," the soldier reported, and Davis nodded. targeting data spilled across his monitor, and he tapped a few buttons. The in-turret radio squawked, and all three men put a finger to their ears; even idling, the Predator's engine nearly drowned out the radios.

"Platoon, stand ready," came the call from Lieutenant Brooks. "Wall sensor feeds report breaches in several locations near the checkpoint. they'll be coming through any second."

"Ranger Five-Seven, Copy," Davis replied quickly, and looked around the interior of his tank, at the grim faces of his troops. Wilkins stopped his nervous drumming on the sides of his instruments, and Heath tightened his grip on the tank's steering wheel. There were a few moments of silence, and Wilkins glanced over his instruments.

"Hope my girl's alright," he muttered, and Davis nodded. The Corporal had just bought a ring for his girlfriend a few days ago, and the tank commander could see the determination on his gunner's face to survive and get it to her. Davis knew he'd do his damndest to make sure they all lived through this.

"Second Platoon, multiple breaches at-" came a call over the radio, and all three men tensed up, snapping to their stations as the words were cut off by a shout of shock and a sudden, intense roar. The sensors showed a massive thermal eruption along the length of the wall, and then telemetry data from the local EVA flashed onto Davis' monitor.

"Receiving target, Scorpion tank, three degrees left, one-point-one down, eight hundred meters!" Davis shouted as an image appeared on his sensor. The turret shifted as Wilkins brought the cannon to bear.

"Clear target," Wilkins replied. "Firing!" The Predator shuddered, the blast from the cannon filling the enclosed turret, and the telemetry data changed.

"That's a hit," Heath called back, watching the battle as it progressed. The Predator's sensors were already reporting the hit to the local EVA, who was wasting no time feeding them fresh telemetry.

"Second target, Scorpion! Two-point-four degrees left, seven hundred forty meters!" Davis ordered. There was a clank and the rumble of working machinery nearby as the heavy ammunition loaders slid a new shell into place. The air was filled with roars and explosions, missiles flying through the air from both sides, and machineguns and cannons blasting away. Scarlet bolts of light sliced through the air from the billowing smoke of the caving wall.

"Clear target!" Wilkins confirmed. "Firing!" The tank shook again, but it felt like only one shudder in a sea of chaos as hordes of Nod warriors and weapons poured through the breach.

* * *

"Cover, cover!"

"GDI armor and infantry, flanking west of our position!"

He felt arms hook underneath him, and the baking heat and pungent scent of burning bodies as he was dragged backwards.

"Commander is secured," came another impersonal, filtered voice, and the report of laser rifles nearby shook Rawne, cutting through the haze that had filled his head. A scream of pain sounded nearby.

"Hail is down," reported Sergeant Park, the leader of the bodyguard detail, as Rawne sat up, scrabbling for his pistol. His men were taking cover behind the burning wreckage of the destroyed attack buggy. Bullets pockmarked the area around them, pinning down Rawne and the three remaining bodyguards.

"What are they carrying?" Rawne asked as he reactivated his personal computer. Shaped light danced in front of his eyes, and he quickly began locating the nearest units and rerouting them to his position.

"Two APCs, with rifle infantry," reported one of the bodyguards, in between bursts from his laser rifle. Scarlet bolts lanced out from the squad's position, searing through any GDI troopers who showed themselves. "But they have to have some kind of anti-armor weaponry, sir."

"We can't stay here," Rawne hissed, knowing that with numerical and fire superiority, the GDI troops could quickly surround and overwhelm them. The laser weapons of his guards were effective against light infantry, but the heavy armor typical of GDI vehicles was too thick to easily disable.

"Forty meters southeast," replied another bodyguard, pointing toward what remained of a V-35 Ox. It was bigger and would give them a lot more cover against missile attacks, and there were several hangars directly behind it that they could retreat to.

"That's across open ground," Rawne muttered, and glanced to his men, who did not reply. They all knew the danger, but at the same time, they knew their duty and their overriding priority.

"Commander is moving," Park declared. "Wilkes, Sabes, covering fire." Acknowledgements sounded over the radio, and both remaining bodyguards opened up, loosing a fusillade of laser fire on the GDI troops and vehicles. At the same moment, Park and Rawne rose and bolted for cover, the sergeant laying down suppressive fire as he kept between his charge and the enemy. Return fire ripped through the air from the APCs, but most of it remained focused on the two bodyguards behind cover, whose furious barrage of light kept up the illusion that there were a lot more soldiers behind their cover.

Fire cut past the pair, but Rawne managed to reach the downed Ox without being hit. He checked his holographic displays again, to see that his reinforcements were closing in fast; already, a group of attack motorcycles was cutting past, firing rockets and machineguns at the APCs and pulling their fire away.

"Commander!" came a call over the radio from Wilkins. "Infidel squad, circling around your cover north!" Park leapt around in front of Rawne at the warning, shouldering his rifle, and the weapon screamed. Scarlet bolts cut through the air, blasting into the gray-white camouflage of a GDI soldier as he came around the Ox. The man fell backwards, his torso armor reduced to molten slag and his rifle spraying wildly into the air.

Rawne crouched and dropped to the left, extending his pistol hand out and bracing the weapon with his left hand as he his the tarmac. A pair of GDI soldiers were coming around the Ox, and the weapon erupted in a bolt of blue-white light, tearing through the man's right shoulder and burning his arm clean off. The second one was dispatched by another burst from Park's rifle. By that point the rest of the GDI squad was piling around the edge of the destroyed Ox, their weapons blazing.

Rawne's pistol barked again, coring a GDI soldier through his helmet's optics and vaporizing his head. Beside him, Park let out a grunt of agony and dropped to one knee, even as bullets skipped off his heavy battle suit. Blood leaked out over the black and red plating, but he continued firing, burning down another infidel, this one carrying a missile launcher. Two more shots from Rawne finished off the last GDI soldier as he began to pull back.

"Sergeant!" Rawne said, rising and crouching next to the wounded bodyguard. Park waved a hand and started to stand, the built-in medical gear pumping bio-regenerative foam into his wounds.

"I'll live, commander," he replied, and started forward, toward the corner the GDI troops had come from. He stepped over the bodies as Rawne covered the other side. "Clear."

"GDI troops advancing toward our position, using APCs for cover," called Sabes over the radio. His voice betrayed none of the fear or apprehension that had had to be feeling as the enemy closed in. "Armor on those APCs is too heavy for our weapons."

"Copy," Sergeant Park replied. "Hold position and keep them occupied while I evac the Commander."

"Belay that," Rawne replied, and Park looked up, to see his commander picking up one of the dropped GDI missile launchers. He grinned to his bodyguard as he checked and shouldered the weapon. "They were going to flank us and use these on our entrenched position. I say we turn the tables."

"Agreed, sir," Park replied, and scooped up a second missile launcher. The weapon, an FGM-90, was more complex than the RPG-43s favored by Nod infantry, and had an advanced, complicated optics array to interface with GDI helmets. Neither soldier could really use the more advanced options of the launcher, and instead used the mounted iron sights on the side of the weapons.

Both Rawne and Park crouched beside the Ox, the weapons ready, and as they waited, a pair of low, angular shapes rolled forward, long-barreled, twin-linked machineguns mounted on turrets atop their six-wheeled, armored frames. The APCs were splitting up, shrugging off laser fire from the pinned Nod soldiers as they offered cover and supporting fire for two more groups of GDI soldiers.

"Fire!" Rawne hissed, and both men depressed the triggers on their weapons. The launchers roared, and missiles lanced out on tails of flaming exhaust. The warheads slammed into the side of the lead APC, the first missile exploding against and breaching the outer armor layers, while the second shattered the plating and penetrated. The APC went up in a flume of fire, the entire vehicle catching alight, and several GDI soldiers nearby were blasted off their feet by the detonations. Moving quickly, Rawne and Park reloaded their stolen weapons and shouldered them again, aiming at the second APC. The topside turret began to turn toward them, but before it could open up, both men let loose a second volley and dove for cover behind the Ox. Once again, the missiles penetrated the armor and set the GDI vehicle ablaze.

Cheers erupted over the radio as more laser fire cut down a knot of GDI soldiers, and amidst the smoke and fire, the surviving troops began to fall back -

-and ran headlong into literally hundreds of Nod soldiers with supporting vehicles as Rawne's reinforcements finally arrived. A furious barrage of gunfire and missiles slammed into the broken GDI troops, and Rawne watched with satisfaction as they were cut off and surrounded.

"Advance and purify!" Rawne ordered over the radio, dropping the stolen missile launcher. "Leave none of these infidels alive!"

* * *

"Fire fire _fire_!" The order echoed in Blunt's ears as he saw the wall shudder and collapse, bolts of flame and light ripping through the ceramic and metal structure and scattering hundreds of tons of debris. Billowing smoke and ash and dust flowed forth, obscuring his view, and lances of scarlet energy cut through the haze, slicing into the ground and the buildings all around them. Blunt numbly raised his GD2 and squeezed the trigger, feeling the reassuring kick and report as the building shook, the array of GDI weaponry answering the Nod assault with fury and vigor.

The weapon ran empty in the span of a second, and it took Blunt a moment to even realize it had gone silent. He ducked behind cover, fumbling for a fresh magazine, a chunk of masonry flying past as a round impacted nearby. The building shook again, dust filling the room as something detonated a floor below, and he slid a fresh box into the magazine well of his rifle. Rising, Blunt pointed his rifle in the general direction of the enemy and opened fire again, his heart hammering almost as fast as his rifle.

There was movement inside the chaos and fire, and then something emerged from the smoke and dust. Blunt was expecting to see tanks or other armored vehicles breaching the gap, but what burst forth from the dust was like nothing he had ever seen outside videos from the Second Tiberium War.

The ground shook with their footsteps as a half dozen tall, humanoid shapes swept out of the ruins of the wall, missiles and cannon shot bouncing harmlessly off obsidian-black armor. Their right arms were raised as they advanced, and blindingly-bright beams of scarlet light lanced out from cannons the size of small vehicles. The front line of tanks and cannon emplacements took the barrage of energy head on, and composite armor evaporated, the tank crews immolated in a searing river of laser fire.

"What the hell are those things?" Agels screamed as Blunt stared in awestruck horror. The immense walkers were eating enough fire to kill a Mammoth tank without even slowing down, and behind them came a wave of vehicles; Scorpion tanks, attack motorcycles and buggies, and trucks laden with hundreds of soldiers. One of the war machines turned, a wide array of stylized red sensors on its front sweeping over their apartment building, and the walker's arm pointed at their position.

"Down!" screamed Simons, and the order shook Blunt out of his petrified stare. He threw himself down to the floor as blinding light swept through the apartment complex, burning away flesh, ceramic, and steel.

* * *

"Avatars," Davis breathed as his tank shook again. As he watched, the shell bounced harmlessly off the lead walker's front armor, and it turned, loosing another bolt of light on a bunker. The concrete was vaporized, along with the men inside, ammunition cooking off and hurling pieces of debris into the air.

"Sarge?" Wilkins asked, and Davis shook his head, remembering the intelligence briefings on intercepted blueprints regarding Nod's walker fleet. He quickly shifted his sensors, lighting up a new target as the building next to him shook, debris raining down around them. EVA's transmissions were suddenly cut off as a beam lanced past, and he knew that the forward command center had probably taken that blast.

"Shift down one-point-three degrees, point-one-five degrees right," he ordered. "Target Nod walker's leg, six hundred and eighteen meters!"

"Clear target!" Wilkins replied, and the Predator shuddered. Through the sensors, Davis saw the shell slam into the walker's left leg, blasting a piece of armor plating away.

"No penetration! Maintain fire on target!" Davis ordered, and Wilkins nodded.

"Clear target, firing!" Once more, the Predator shook, and this time, the walker paused in its advance, portions of its leg armor blasted away to reveal components underneath.

Then, as he watched, the walker sidestepped, faster than he believed such a weapon was capable of, and as it did so, another scarlet bolt lanced out, searing through the reflective road ahead of them.

"No target!" Wilkins reported as he tried to turn the turret toward the maneuvering walker. There was a squawk in Davis ears as he heard his gunner's call, and the tank commander frowned, checking his screen.

_"All GDI forces, withdraw to Defense Point Bravo!"_ came the yell over the radio, which was authenticated as belonging to Colonel Anderson. _"Repeat, withdraw to DP Bravo! We can't hold them here! Regroup and reform at DP Bravo!"_

"Heath, get us moving, reverse!" Davis ordered, and the driver immediately threw the Predator into full reverse. "Wilkins, fire at will!"

"Copy, Sarge," the gunner replied, and the tank shuddered as he punished an oncoming Scorpion tank. Another shell bounced off their forward armor, and a laser beam slashed past them, bisecting a street sign as Heath swung the vehicle around.

The command network had to have been trashed if the Colonel was giving them general orders like this, Davis realized grimly as they began to pull back. Even worse, he realized moments later, was how few of their Predators were even able to withdraw; smoking remnants of ruined vehicles littered the area as they gave ground before the implacable Nod advance.

* * *

"On your feet or you're dead!" yelled Corporal Simons, grabbing Blunt by the shoulder plate of his armor and hauling him to his feet. The Zone Security trooper opened his eyes as he tried to stand, gripping his rifle so tightly that his fingers were hurting. The apartment's wall has been burned away, leaving a glowing gash in the side of the building. A pair of smoking boots and a molten hunk of metal were all that remained of Agels and his machinegun. Below, dozens of vehicles and hundreds of soldiers could be seen, streaming toward the GDI defenses.

_"Platoon, Nod infantry, lower floors!"_ came Sergeant Keith over the radio. _"Everyone, pull out! Get out of the building before you're overrun!"_

Blunt and Simons were rushing out of the door seconds later, and running down the hallway. They could hear gunfire below, and several other GDI troopers were hurrying into the hallway as they reached the door leading to the stairwell.

The door flew open, and a man clad in militia fatigues burst through the portal, a rifle in hand. He was practically right on top of Blunt, and let out an inarticulate roar as he tried to cave in the trooper's skull. Fortunately, Blunt was still wearing his helmet, and the rifle butt bounced off, only dazing the soldier, and he snapped up his GD2, clashing against the Nod warrior's rifle. They fell backward, clearing the door, and gunfire filled the hallway as Simons blasted away at threats beyond the doorway.

Blunt's training kicked in as he fell back, and he snapped the GD2 down and to his right. The Nod soldier's weapon followed, and Blunt swept his weapon back up, smashing the butt of the rifle into his foe's jaw. The man tumbled backward, and Blunt fired from the hip, a burst of rounds punching through the man's stomach and chest at point blank range.

The soldier stared down at the corpse for a moment, panting heavily as blood dripped off his plate armor.

"Blunt, come on!" shouted Simons as he moved through the door ahead, sweeping the area beyond with his rifle. The Zone Security trooper looked up, and shook himself out of his momentary shock, and followed the Corporal and the other GDI soldiers. He stepped over several more Nod corpses in the stairwell landing beyond, and heard gunfire below.

They hurried down the stairwell, but as they descended to the third floor, Simons held up a hand. An instant later, gunfire slashed up the stairwell at them,a nd the troopers fell back against the wall.

"Nod troops have overrun the lower levels," he muttered, and Blunt nodded. More gunfire ripped up the passage, and the private pulled a grenade from his belt. He popped the pin and dropped it down the shaft, and the subsequent explosion was chased by Nod screams. Simons opened the third floor door, and they followed him, the last two troopers covering the door after they passed through.

"How are we getting out?" Blunt asked as they heard more shots outside, followed by an explosion.

"Fire escape," Simons replied, pointing down the hallway, and Blunt nodded, seeing a window that led to the external staircase. The GDI troops hurried up the passage toward the window, and a burst of gunfire dealt with the glass window. As the troopers startled piling out, the door to the stairwell flew open, and bullets slammed into the walls around them. Blunt and two other troopers returned fire, and cut down a pair of Nod soldiers moving into the hallway.

"Go go go!" Blunt yelled, and the remaining troops scrambled outside, even as more nod fighters were charging into the hallway, screaming dogmatic ephitets at the GDI soldiers. A burst bounced off his shoulder plate as Blunt shot another man in the chest, and then he ducked through the window. Another soldier outside popped and threw an incendiary grenade into the hallway he had just departed, throwing up a wall of flame that would deter pursuit.

Moments later, the surviving soldiers, a dozen men all told, had gotten outside the apartment complex. Simon, the highest-ranking trooper remaining, quickly got them moving away from the building, the soldiers jogging up an alley and out onto a street opening away from the battle around the breach.

They paused at the alley entrance, Simons trying to bring up communications on his helmet, but finally shaking his head.

"Comms are being jammed," he muttered. "Can't get in touch with Sergeant Keith, if he's even still alive."

"What do we do?" asked another soldier as Blunt covered the rear end of the alley.

"Defense Point Bravo is a kilometer east of here," Simons said, pointing. "If we stay out of sight, we might be able to hump it there without-"

"Tank!" shouted another soldier, and they started to duck back inside the alley as a Nod Scorpion tank rolled around the corner. The scarab-like vehicle spotted them s they took cover, however, and a shell slammed into the building to their left.

"Fall back!" Simons shouted. "Get out of the alley, we're dead if we-"

His order was cut off by an explosion outside, and the Scorpion shattered as a missile slammed into its unarmored rear. As the tank's remnants burned, the soldiers spotted a man jogging around the side of the vehicle, sweeping the area with one of Nod's RPG-43 launchers. He wasn't clad in militia fatigues, and in fact looked like a civilian, but he carried the weapon with practiced ease. A moment later, he spotted the GDI troopers and waved toward them.

After only a moment's hesitation, Simons piled his troops out of the alley, and ran up toward the civilian with the rocket launcher.

"Thanks for the save," he offered, and the civilian - a man who looked like he was three times Simons' age - grinned and nodded.

"Doing what I could to help," he replied. "Name's Parker, but you can call me Havoc. Let's get the hell out of here before more Nod troops show up. I'm low on ammo for this thing anyway."

* * *

"Commander," Ajay said, his face appearing on the holographic display. "Heard you had a close call back there."

"We overextended ourselves," Logan Rawne replied, sitting in the passenger seat of one of another raiding buggy as it rolled across the opulent greenery of the Blue Zone they were so busily sacking. "GDI troops flanked our position, but we dealt with them."

"Good to hear," the intelligence agent replied with a nod, and then looked down at something outside the display. "Looks like with Andrews Air Base taken out, you've castrated GDI's air power in the region." He grinned. "I love that word, _castrate_. Okay, anyway, Kane's sent down some fresh orders. We need to hit GDI right where it hurts, knock out their morale before we go in for the kill."

"Where are we headed?" Rawne asked, checking the maps on his display. Overhead, pair of bat-winged Vertigo bombers flew past, heading back to their launch sites Kentucky to reload and refuel.

"Ever been to the White House, Commander?" Ajay asked with a wide grin, and the Commander mirrored it a moment later.

* * *

The Comcom beeped, and laser projectors flashed to life, feeding Karrde information directly from his communications link. He had settled down into a chair at the front of the Ox transport, monitoring the situation as their pilots hurried to get Fourth Battalion where it might do some good.

"Talk to me, Lieutenant," Karrde said as he recognized the face of the woman on the other end of the line. Lieutenant Kirce James was seated behind her desk, with a myriad of officers and soldiers hurrying around her as she tried to sort out the incoming information.

"We don't have much in the way of good news, Commander," she replied, looking up at the camera on her desk. "Communications are a mess right now. I've got reports of Nod forces everywhere; we've got several breaches along the zone walls, and what looks like thousands of Nod flyers all over the place. I'm guessing we're looking at millions of Nod troops, pouring through and flying over the perimeter. All our defensive positions are being overrun or pulling back. I'm uploading what I've got." The Comcom vibrated as data transferred into the device, and Karrde started to look through it, shaking his head as he did so.

Nod's attack was massive and overwhelming, and there were immense numbers of troops breaching their defenses up and down the coast. But what worried him the most were what looked like rapid insurgent forces moving around deep inside the B-2. They had already assaulted and overrun several critical sites and sacked several monuments. Reports were filtering in of Nod troops landing at and overrunning Hampton Roads Navy Base, and Andrews Air Force base had stopped transmitting shortly after reporting Nod troops breaching their perimeter. Without Andrews, many of the air units scrambled to fend off the Nod attack wouldn't have a place to land . . . .

"Lieutenant James," Karrde said, bringing her image back up. "We need to re-establish air support and take out these insurgent troops operating inside our lines. Do we still have any intact airbases in the region?"

"One moment," Kirce replied, and after a couple of seconds of hammering at her keyboard, she nodded.

"Langely is still online, though they are reporting Nod insurgent troops attacking at several points along their perimeter," she replied. "I've also got reports that a large Nod force is advancing from Hampton Roads to reinforce the insurgent units already at Langley." Karrde nodded.

"Keep trying to reestablish comms with the Pentagon," he ordered, and then switched to the battalion-wide frequency.

"Fourth, listen up," he said. "Nod has overrun parts of B-2 and we've lost over half our airbases. Langley is the only intact air base we've got left, and we're going to make sure we keep it. Load up and get ready for a hot drop, people."

He looked around the troop bay, to see grim but determined faces looking back at him. the troops were getting over their shock at the sudden invasion, and though a few of the younger ones were still white faced, the majority of them were eager to do what they could to fight back.

Major Koen popped in on the command frequency as Karrde finished and was going over the maps of the area around Langley.

"Got a plan, Commander?" he asked, and Karrde grunted.

"Kill every last one of the goddamn Nod sons of bitches, for a start," he replied, and Koen nodded.

"Sounds good, sir."

* * *

_**GDI Science Report - Classified - Eyes Only **_

_**Subject: Tiberium Evolution Analysis**_

_**Author: Edward Jerod, M.D.**_

_Abstract: One of the key difficulties in understanding Tiberium comes from its seemingly schizophrenic nature. It continues to defy scientific analysis because it is an inconsistent, constantly-changing conundrum whose rules and behavior seem to alter every decade. However, in analyzing the behavior of this substance and the information we have managed to decode from the Tacitus, I have noted a disturbing trend._

_In the years following the initial arrival of Tiberium in 1995, we came to know it as a plant-like lifeform, organic and spreading rapidly across the face of the globe via unclear but extremely swift means. It was initially believed that Tiberium itself was a plant-like entity, but in analyzing its nature, we have come to realize that the organic structures we encountered were not Tiberium itself, but a _mutation _of grassy and flowering plants used to further its spread. Much like the "blossom trees" that developed from natural trees, the plant-like lifeforms that we harvested so readily were nothing but tools used by the actual mutagenic substance to spread itself, placing roots throughout the landscape that allowed more of the crystals to form and more plants to be altered to fit the alien substance's requirements. Tiberium itself turned out to be the valuable crystals we were refining, a primitive and less-advanced form of the current type that could not spread without first converting these plants as a vector. _

_Up to and past the Second Tiberium War we continued seeing examples of Tiberium's insidious growth and transformation. Doctor Ignatio Mobeius was correct in his assessment that Tiberium was transforming the Earth, for we saw new lifeforms rising up to adapt to the Tiberium spread: the visceroid, the Tiberium fiends, the floaters, and most strikingly, the mutant humans known as the Forgotten. New strains of Tiberium appeared, and for the first time we saw direct transformation of material such as rock into slabs of the crystalline substance. This was but a herald of what we suspected was coming in the following years._

_Now, Tiberium has changed again, evolving as it always has, this time shedding the shell of organic mutations. It now infests the ground itself, spreading outwards slowly, reaching into the mantle of our world, converting everything it touches into more of itself. It has transformed entire regions of this world into alien landscapes, cracked, broken, and hellish environments, with glaciers of pure green crystal rising up into the sky like alien monoliths - a source of unimaginable wealth if any dared to tread the Red Zones. In many ways, this new Tiberium is an even greater boon for our economy than the older forms, which were rich in base minerals. This new form, in the process of conversion, breaks down all material it absorbs, creating a gestalt, uniform crystalline structure. Once harvested, processed, and treated, it forms a base material that can be literally converted into any element, provided it is supplied to the proper nanomachine factory. This base material, once converted to a liquid form, can also be used as a fuel in next-generation reactors - or, as has been seen in several documented skirmishes against the Brotherhood of Nod, utilized as a weapon with potentially higher yields than thermonuclear warheads._

_Why has Tiberium constantly changed? It has continued to alter the world, but its changes and evolutions have always driven it forward in directions that would further its growth and spread. Now it is altering our very world, creating alien realms where no natural creature can survive . . . and it is my personal and fearful suspicion that this not an accident. Tiberium's spread has been an ordered process, a constant, step-by-step growth and transformation, mutating everything it has touched in a manner that defies simple unguided and exponential growth and evolution._

_There is a _purpose_ behind this horror we look upon every day, and I shudder when I attempt to imagine what that purpose may yet be._

-

* * *

I apologize for how long this chapter took to finish.

As you may have noticed, this particular part of the story will not be perfectly following the in-game chronology of events; this is deliberate, as I have _plans_ for the siege of the Pentagon. While it was fine from a gameplay standpoint - it's the second mission of the game, after all - I felt that from a dramatic standpoint, the battle outside the Pentagon needs to be a little more..._desperate_.

Now, rather than lambasting DeCandido (that'll be saved for later chapters) for this particular author's note, I wanted to respond to a few relatively recent and fascinatingly insightful reviews. Now, I want to establish this early on, to make my particular viewpoint clear: I don't really care about things that were "cut out" of Tiberium Wars - e.g. the Forgotten, which is a big beef I know some people have. I feel that Tiberian Sun was the mutants' moment to shine, and even in Firestorm they were being sidelined - Umagon's devolution and Tratos' assassination, for example, really cut them out of the plotline. I personally feel that each Command and Conquer game is centered on GDI and Nod, with other tertiary elements showing up in each part of the series to show more of the universe; in Dawn, it was Tiberium itself, while in Sun, it was the Forgotten, and in Firestorm, CABAL. In Wars, its now the Scrin. With the rise of the Scrin being the new, important part of the series, other elements, like the Forgotten and CABAL, are relegated to the wayside; I don't think this is a bad thing, but rather, a natural direction the series is taking as it develops.

That being said, while the game understandably focuses less on the mutants in favor of the much more important arrival of the Scrin, don't think that _this_ story will be relegating the mutants completely to the wayside. While I will be keeping Tiberium as it appears in the game, I am not going to be taking it as the extremely lethal bullshit that DeCandido made it out to be in the novel; I have choice words to offer on the scientific implausibility of quite a bit of his nonsense for later chapters - rad-showers, poisonous Tiberium atmosphere, and Tiberium in the water among them.

Now regarding some commentary on my use of DeCandido's slang terminology - it was actually one of the few things in the novel that I _liked_, as it made things seem quite a bit more real to me. Of course it sounds corny and silly - its slang. Slang _does_ sound corny, silly, and idiotic when observed from the outside, and I'm not going to deny that. But there is some precedent for its use in the game, as a few lines of soldier dialogue make reference to "tib" and the GDI harvester's completetion quote even makes reference to a "tib-zone." Besides, this is _Command and Conquer_ we're talking about here. _Any_ possible complaints about corniness were rendered null and void when Renegade came out; CNC is _built _on corny, over-the-top dialogue and language.

Avatars...well, wait and see :D

And the Stealth Tank - oh, man. I actually had a rant about this, but that was a positive rant, as the way the Stealth Tank works in-game is one of the most plausible and realistic designs for a weapon like that I can possibly imagine. The main reason a vehicle like the Stealth Tank would not fire all of its missiles at once in real life is, ironically, because missiles fired by such a tank would typically only require one or two hits to disable a real tank or AFV (unlike in video games, real life doesn't have vehicle "hit points" - its usually a case of either you penetrate the armor and kill the tank, or you don't, or you damage some external system or the treads or something and disable that system.) Much like the real life MRLS, the Stealth Tank would fire its rockets in rapid succession, one or two at each of several targets, all within a matter of seconds, and then scoot away. In real life, something like the Stealth Tank could jump and knock out an entire armored platoon in seconds, and _packs_ of STs...well, let's just say that GDI is incredibly fortunate to go up against these things in a video game where their hit points let them survive such barrages. And the other issue with firing all your missiles at once is that the rocket exhaust from so many missiles firing at once would literally melt and warp the launchers. That's also why the MRLS fires one missile at a time, and in-game, the Pitbull fires two missiles from _opposite_ launchers. Combined with its low profile and the missile launchers mounted on top - enabling a hull down position in a huge range of terrain - the Stealth Tank in Tiberium Wars would be a horrifying weapon to fight in real life.

Or, say, in this story. :P

I was also going to make some drawn-out commentary on GDI and Nod's respective morality and ethics, but that would make this author commentary extend on for far too long. Ya'll are going to have to wait on that for next chapter.

Until next chapter . . . .


	7. Chapter VI: Airborne

_**Chapter VI: Airborne**_

_"The worst part about being a good officer is the faces. A bad officer doesn't remember the faces when he sees the names on the lists. Maybe that's why good officers are so damn hard to find."_

_-GDI Battle Commander Alexander Karrde_

"Alright, blooper?" came a call, and PFC Winters looked up into a concerned face. They'd boarded the Ox transports fast, without taking time to separate companies, and one of the Corporals from A Company was sitting across from him. Winters nodded after a second.

"Best I can be, after getting pulled out of hell," he replied with a slight grin. The Corporal nodded as he fiddled with the detached optics on his helmet.

"I think hell is going to be home for a while," the man replied, chuckling, and he slid the optics visor back onto his helmet, over the air filters. He slid the helmet back onto his head, and gave the PFC a thumbs up.

Winters looked back over his grenade launcher, and then checked his sidearm, barely noticing the rumble of the V-35 Ox's laboring engines.

"Fourth, standby," came a call over the radio, from the Battle Commander. "We're twenty minutes out from Langley, and the base commander says its all going green out there. Nod insurgent forces are all over the place. This is going to be a hot landing." Winters swallowed as he put his own helmet back on, clicking on the optics as he tried to still his breathing. This was going to get worse before it got better.

* * *

"Skull Squadron, you are cleared for liftoff," came the strained voice of the local air traffic controller. "Feeding strike mission to you now, over."

"Skull Lead, acknowledged and receiving," Major Victor Hagen replied as his engines whined, the sound dampeners in his helmet not filtering out all of the noise. Telemetry data, flight plans, and targets spilled over his heads-up display, amidst a river of information about his VTOL craft. He picked out the necessary data with practiced ease. This was their third strike mission in under an hour against the Nod forces swarming the Zone.

"Skulls, sound off," Hagen snapped over his radio as ordnance crews scrambled around, loading the last missiles onto the racks of his Orca, the fuel drones and crew pulling out and reeling in the lines. His radio resounded with the all-green checks from the remaining Orca pilots of Skull Squadron, though Skull Three was conspicuously absent; the remains of her Orca were drifting down the Potomac River at that point.

_No time to mourn the fallen,_ Hagen thought, pushing aside the memory of the pilot's scream as she was bracketed by a volley of Nod missiles twenty minutes ago.

"Lead, this is Five," called Captain Thomas, Hagen's second and the leader of Bravo Flight. "There's some serious action going on at the north end of the base."

"Tower, Skull Lead, is everything under control out there?" Hagen asked. Langley's central control tower was silent for a moment, before responding.

"Nod forces attacking along our northern perimeter," came the controller's reply. "Major Collins reports that they are seriously outnumbered and is requesting danger close fire missions against Nod armor and infantry."

"Copy," Hagen replied grimly. They had to hold this airfield at all costs. If the reports he'd overheard from Andrews were correct, Langley was one of their last air bases in the region . . . .

"Skulls, lift and follow heading," he ordered, and the Orca's engines roared as he flicked a switch, setting them to full power. The sound redoubled as the remaining aircraft joined him, and as one tight, disciplined formation, they lifted off the tarmac. Around him, the remainder of Skull Squadron formed up - seven Orcas, with a full load of missiles and ammunition between them.

The air base dropped away beneath them as Skull Squadron cut west, toward the defensive engagement raging less than a kilometer from the airbase. Green hills and forests began to flash by below, with clusters of buildings intermixed among them. It was difficult to tell where urban areas ended and the countryside began; the forests and the cities were tightly integrated, crammed together in the relatively limited amounts of paradise that still lingered.

Hagen checked the overlay of the local battlefield as he closed in - satellite was out, all this damned jamming - and picked out the callsign for Major Collins' companies. The GDI Army units were spread out in the suburbs west of the air base, fighting a retreating battle, and on the overlay, Hagen saw the GDI units outnumbered at least three to one by Nod blips.

"Delta-Charlie One-Two, this is Skull Lead. Standing by for targets, over."

"Copy Skull Lead," came a reply, and in the background of the transmission Hagen could hear the roar of gunfire and explosions. "Feeding targeting data to you now. Be advised, enemy is using light armor assets with anti-air capability, over."

"Understood, One-Two," Hagen replied, and checked his monitor as blips appeared, telemetry data spilling across his eyesight. He highlighted the first target he received, a pair of Nod light attack buggies spraying fire over a squad of pinned down troops inside a townhouse. His sensors and onboard squad-leader EVA unit confirmed a good target lock.

"Skull Lead, good tone. Fox One," he recited as he hit the fire button on his flight stick. His warning was echoed across the squad frequency as the rest of the Skulls released missiles, singly or in pairs, at targets below.

Every Orca had been loaded with six Hellfire air-to-ground anti-armor missiles for this run. They were designed to penetrate armor rated for main battle tanks and hardened bunkers; the result of them slamming into light armor buggies was akin to a sledgehammer meeting a block of cheese.

* * *

Muted voices and the thrum of working consoles filled the room, the chamber lit by a combination of fluorescent lamps and shining computer terminals. Crewmen moved back and forth, information flowing from terminal and human amidst the rasp of radios and muted intercoms.

Navy Commander Larry Conway stood in the center of the Combat Information Center of the _GDS London_, peering over the incoming data, and looked up at the screen before him, which showed the _London's_ bridge. Captain Mikhail Volsky, a heavyset man from western Russia, was framed in the center of the display, giving orders to his ship's crew. Commander Conway nodded as he looked at the local theater map, and tapped a couple of buttons on his central Comcom. The display flickered, and a dozen additional heads appeared: the Captains and Ship Commanders of the fleet that had been patrolling the Atlantic Ocean east of Blue Zone Two.

His rank was something of a misnomer, and an oddity in naval parlance; normal Commanders in the GDI Navy were O-5s, while Captains were O-6s, but Navy Commanders were much like the Battle Commanders of the GDI Army, being in overall command of particular navy forces, and able to requisition anything they needed, only answerable to Rear Admirals and higher.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Conway said, uploading the information that the CIC was constantly receiving. "Global MilNet is being scrambled right now. We have no contact with the Pentagon, Whitehall, Kokubo Sosho, or Southern Cross. We have blanket jamming over the entire Zone and everything within a four hundred kilometer radius around Washington DC. My EVA reports that we'll be able to break through the signal jamming eventually, but right now, we're on our own." He tapped a couple of buttons, bringing up a map of the area around Washington and the surrounding bases.

"I've been able to get scattered PTP laser comms bounced off satellites with some of the bases on the ground around Washington, and the situation is ugly. Nod insurgent forces have raided nearly every major military base up and down the coast. Andrews has been wiped out, and Hampton Roads and Langley are under attack by Nod naval units. As of . . . ." he paused, checking his Comcom, and uploading the new information he found. "Seven minutes ago, we can confirm Nod naval presence east of Hampton Roads, covering a large amphibious assault force.

"Per GDI Field Command Protocol Section 1A-22B, I'm assuming tactical command of this carrier group and conducting independent operations until contact with CentCom is reestablished," he continued once the information had sunk in. "I've gotten online with Brigadier Sanderson of the 41st Marine Expeditionary Unit. Their ships are less than an hour from our position and are ready to launch amphibious landings up and down the coast to counter the Nod invasion. In order to pull that off we're going to have to break the Nod naval presence at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay."

The Captains and Commanders nodded, but Conway knew what they were all thinking. Would they arrive in time to make a difference?

"Captain Volsky, best estimate on how long it'll take us to hit that Nod battlegroup?" The Russian captain glanced off the side of the screen and turned back.

"We're already well inside cruise missile range, Commander," he replied, his voice heavily accent with his Russian accent. "We'll be in short missile range in thirty minutes, gun range in thirty five."

"Understood," Conway replied, nodding as he looked over the terminals and screens inside the CIC. He took a deep breath, and committed his ships to war. "All ships, assume assault formation and close with Nod battlegroup at flank speed."

"Commander," a voice called from across the CIC, as the ship altered course toward the new heading. Conway looked up and crossed the room, toward a Chief Petty Officer who was monitoring communications. The NCO tapped a few keys as Conway approached, and the Commander's Comcom vibrated as the data uploaded. A single glance at the information chilled the officer's blood.

"Hampton Roads has fallen," he muttered, shocked. The naval base was one of the most heavily defended installations in B-2. How had Nod broken their perimeter so quickly? More importantly, if Hampton Roads was in enemy hands, then Nod forces had a ready-made coastal landing position where they could pour troops into B-2 from the east. A simultaneous eastern and western assault could shatter the GDI forces up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

"EVA give me a list of intact coastal facilities where we can land Sanderson's Marines," Conway called. His personal AI unit processed for a couple of seconds in response to the query as Conway spoke again. "EVA, ETA to Nod battlegroup?

"Twenty-seven minutes to optimum close-in missile range, twenty-eight minutes to gun range," came the reply from the CIC EVA. There were _five_ EVA units on board the _London_, one handling the CIC, one handling the _London's_ weapons, another handling its engines and systems, a third directing the fleet of VTOL aircraft it carried, and Conway's unit. There was no distinct name or identity to each EVA unit; instead, the AIs simply sorted out queries and instructions based on which one's responsibility the query fell under.

A second cool female voice cut in after the first EVA was finished.

"Landing zones identified," it reported, and a series of flashing icons appeared up and down the coastline on Conway's map. He frowned a she ran over them. None were close enough to Hampton Roads to cut off the Nod troops that had already landed, except . . . .

"Langley," he said, nodding. That was where the counterattack would begin.

* * *

The ominous red flashing letters of a **"RADAR LOCK"** warning appeared on Hagen's HUD, and he whipped his flight stick around while cutting the thrust from his turbofans. Cursing under his breath, he pumped power into his thrusters as his Orca came around, and jetted away at one hundred-forty degree angle to his original flight path, a hundred meters lower to the ground. The radar warning tone ceased, and he immediately came back around.

"Skulls, AA radar active and scanning!" he shouted. He heard acknowledgements as he scanned the ground for targets. He still had three Hellfires loaded, and brought up the next target he could find, what looked like a heavy weapons emplacement - a "shredder" as they were referred to by the ground pounders - that was set up amidst a partially blown-out apartment building and marked by a spotter somewhere in the city below. It took half a second for Hagen's Orca to get a lock, and he let fly with another missile. The weapon arced down toward the ground, punched through a brick wall, and blew the remaining bits of roof off the building.

"Four, taking fire, deploying flares," came a call over the radio, and Hagen checked his radar in time to see the blip representing Lieutenant Fariq's Orca begin to spin wildly out of control. "Direct hit, rear tail fans!"

"Four, can you control it?" Hagen shouted, banking toward the wounded Orca, which was veering south.

"Barely," came the reply, filled with the strain of a pilot fighting to control his craft. "Trying to . . . Nod . . . line of advance . . . ." Hagen peered out at the damaged Orca, and saw fire belching from its rear, and saw that-

"Four, eject now!" he shouted. "Rear tail is about to snap off! Eject!"

The cockpit canopy exploded off, Fariq too smart and well-trained to second-guess the orders of his squad leader. His ejection seat launched into the air, and moments later the Orca seemed to disintegrate in mid-air.

"EVA, tag and track Four's transponder," Hagen ordered, turning back toward the battle below. "Langley, come in, we have an Orca down, repeat, Orca do . . . ."

He didn't finish, as he saw the GDI soldiers below in full retreat, Nod units scissoring in from the north and attacking the airbase's northern perimeter. Already, enemy troops had bypassed the ravaged ground defenders that had moved west to protect the base, and Nod insurgent units were rampaging among the parked Ox transports and other grounded aircraft.

Langley was overrun, and the Skulls had nowhere to rearm or refuel . . . and neither did any of the other GDI aircraft in B-2.

* * *

Ten minutes later, the V-35s carrying Fourth Battalion came in fast, hard, and _low_ - so low they were almost scraping the rooftops of the civilian housing southwest of the airfield. Karrde knew that this approach was risky, but he felt that staying low would break up lines of fire from any hostiles camped out in the buildings of Langley, as well as fouling up Nod radar.

Reports from the control tower had been cut off fifteen minutes before the Ox transports arrived, and the local EVA had confirmed Nod forces had broken through the outer defensive lines, overrunning the airbase's main facilities. GDI troops were falling back toward a coastal base attached to the Langley facility to regroup.

"Son of a bitch," Major Koen muttered, looking over the information coming in. He, Battle Commander Karrde, and the company and platoon commanders were all reviewing the same information.

"At least two battalions, according to EVA's unit estimates based on collated sensor data," Karrde explained. "Two company-sized elements assaulted from the north. Langley had everyone on deck and fighting the Nod troops to the west of the base, trying to keep them from getting into mortar range of the airfields."

"Makes sense, but they should have expected flanking maneuvers," remarked Captain Randall of A Company.

"They're GDAF," replied Captain Allen of D Company. "They're not that bright when it comes to ground combat."

"Majority of surviving forces are withdrawing to the coastal support and manufacturing facilities half a kilometer southeast of the main base," Karrde continued, checking his Comcom. "Standby, EVA's got me online with the local ground commander there. Major Collins?"

The haggard face of an officer several years too young for his rank pins appeared on the video conference screen, which was quite crowded as it was.

"Yes, sir?" Major Collins replied. Behind him, they could see the officer's command center, with dozens of soldiers running about in a semi-organized riot.

"Battle Commander Karrde, Fourth Battalion, Hundred-Third Recon Division, en route to your southeast," he explained. "Heard you guys needed some help?" Collins nodded, looking offscreen for a moment, and then returned.

"Yes sir, Commander," he replied. "We've been getting hit hard by Nod. Bastards are everywhere, I've got men scattered all over the city, and they've overrun the main air base. All our air assets are either out on strike missions or are missing. Had a squad of Orcas, but they used up all their ordnance right before the base got overrun, so they're in a holding pattern off the coast."

"How many ground assets do you have remaining?" Karrde asked, and Collins paused, thinking.

"Battalion-level," he replied with a shrug. "About four, maybe five hundred troops, including air base personnel I've managed to pull out so far." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Commander, we got our asses handed to us out there. The retreat was disorganized, we didn't have anyone to protect the main base when Nod flanked us-"

"Don't worry about that, Major," Karrde replied. "You just hole up and hang on. We're seven minutes out."

"Understood Commander. Thank you."

Collins winked out, and Karrde switched over to a tactical satellite view of the battlefield, collated by EVA based on information on the ground. He spent a few moments poring over that, and then looked up.

"EVA, bump heads with Collins' local unit and get me troop numbers on what he has left, and see if you can find those Orcas. And check for any other GDI forces in the immediate area." The EVA hummed and began processing, as Karrde went over the deployments on the map.

"Captain Jorgenson, Washborne, I want A and B Companies fanned out here, along these two intersections. Establish bases of fire here and here to cover the main road. Captain Garret, I want C Company to secure these apartment complexes here and here, and fortify them as best you can. I need sniper teams at this position and here, on this building. That should give us a clear line of sight on their approach-"

The Comcom buzzed, and Karrde tapped a flashing icon. Immediately, a face appeared on his screen, that of a pilot whose face was obscured by the full-face helmet he wore. The markings on his helmet identified him as a Major Hagen.

"Commander Karrde?" the man asked, and the officer nodded. "Major Hagen, Skull Squadron. I understand you're bringing reinforcements to the area?"

"That's right, Major," Karrde replied, checking the information on Skull Squadron. They were the Orcas Collins had mentioned . . . .

"Commander, one of my pilots went down in the city southwest of the main airbase," Hagen explained. "We know he's still alive. I know you've already got you hands full with-"

"Captains, do we have any intact platoons that aren't separated?" Karrde asked, looking toward his officers suddenly. The officers conferred offscreen for a moment, and replied. "Okay. Get First Platoon from A and Third from C ready for fast-rope over the crash site. Orders are search and rescue, and then either withdraw to the main base if possible, or secure a perimeter to hold out until reinforcements can arrive to relieve them." He looked back toward Hagen. "Major, if you'd be so kind as to give us the intel on your downed pilot?"

Even with the helmet obscuring his features, Karrde could swear that he could see surprise in the pilot's mannerisms, and then the officer uploaded the information to Karrde's EVA.

"Here you go, Commander," he said quickly, and the data spilled across Karrde's screen. "Thank you, sir." Hagen disappeared, and Karrde looked back to his men.

"Sir, two whole platoons?" Major Koen asked, and the Battle Commander nodded.

"Any fewer would just be throwing bodies into a meat grinder, the numbers we're dealing with. I am _not_ leaving anyone behind, and I'm not putting down too few troops to save that pilot and get back out," Karrde said. "Okay, adjustment to the original plan. A Company, put two squads from Second Platoon _here_. I want mortar positions here and here, pre-sighted on these access roads here, here, and here. I want that entire approach in front of our defensive positions to be a killzone . . . ."

* * *

Corporal Mitchell Colt _hated_ fast-roping. His body was still aching from the mad run outside the hidden Nod base earlier that day, but he knew he couldn't shirk his responsibility.

A pilot going down in the middle of hostile territory - a nightmare for any extraction team. Someone needed to find and protect him until extraction could be arranged or reinforcements could push Nod out. GDI didn't leave people behind; it was one of the things that separated them from the _animals_ in Nod.

Colt hit the ground in a crouch, the cable spooling away from him as he raised his weapon, sweeping his corner of the street. He jogged two steps forward as he rose, letting the next man land behind him. The dance continued across the intersection, GDI troops fanning out as their comrades landed behind them, covering each other as they hunted for cover. Within seconds, Third Platoon was completely debarked and had scattered into individual squads and fireteams.

"Transponder is fifty-seven meters northeast," called Sergeant Havers. "First and Third, advance by fireteams north. Second squad, cover east flank, Fourth, cover our south."

"Third, this is First," came Lieutenant Lumbargo over the radio as their boots pounded pavement, rifles out in every direction as they advanced. Insurgent troops could be anywhere, and the squads moved and flanked, covering each other as they advanced. "Estimate one hundred and seventy meters north of your position, moving south toward transponder."

"Copy, First," Haverson replied. "we're about forty meters from the transponder, and-"

The _pop-op-op_ of rapid rifle fire sounded ahead of them, followed by the crack of a sidearm, and Havers cursed.

"Shots fired at pilot's position!" he yelled, and the GDI troopers picked up their pace, even as the first rifle was joined by a second, then a third.

* * *

Fourth Battalion's V-35s landed without a hitch, swooping over the GDI outpost along the coastline. Scattered anti-air fire flew up toward them, but it was mostly small arms and light machineguns. EVA tracked the fire and sent the coordinates of the shooters to the battered defenders of GDAF defenders at the port, and they silenced the incoming fire moments later with a storm of radar-guided missiles.

The _wonders_ of inter-unit linked sensor networks.

A, C, and D Companies disembarked on drop lines over the base itself, which was being assaulted by Nod infiltrator units inside its perimeter. Sporadic small arms fire came at them from Nod skirmishers, and the GDI troops who landed on the ground returned fire. In short order, four hundred and fifty light and heavy infantry were on the dirt, and the small numbers of Nod insurgents were either hunted down or sent fleeing. Fourth Battalion suffered only one casualty, Private Kidu of D company, who suffered a mercifully painless penetrating round to the cranium, under the brim of his helmet. Lieutenant Wallace's Zone Troopers harried the retreating Nod infantry, pacing them in their powered armor and vaporizing the Nod troops with each _crack_ of a railgun.

B Company hit dirt a few hundred meters east, closer to the base, their V-35s needing extra room to disembark the vehicles and armor. A platoon of Predator tanks, along with an company of APCs and Pitbulls rolled off the ramps, accompanied by light trucks, surveyors, and supply vehicles. No one shot at them, and they moved to quickly encircle the beleaguered base. Pitbull packs roared around the inner perimeter of the base, using local sensor data to pinpoint armored targets and launch rapid missile bombardments against Nod positions, shattering Scorpions and light vehicles. The APCs and Predators followed, loaded with squads of close-assault infantrymen. As the Pitbulls whipped past Nod lines, leaving charred husks of enemy heavy weapons, riflemen and grenadiers stormed off the APCs as the armor covered them with heavy machinegun fire and cannons. Grenadiers launched explosives and stun grenades through the windows of the Nod-occupied buildings as riflemen stormed the interior. The structures became a blood-soaked, dusty nightmare for the Nod infantry as the GDI soldiers quickly and methodically cleared the houses and apartments.

Within twenty minutes of their arrival, Fourth Battalion had broken the Nod advance and sent the surviving fanatics fleeing.

The troops moved with direction and precision, barely pausing as they sent the Nod units retreating. Pre-selected platoons and armored units harassed the retreating Nod soldiers while the majority of the GDI troops started digging in. Infantry took up positions inside structures they had just cleared out, while other squads dug out foxholes and engineers assembled crude, flat-topped bunkers and sandbag emplacements.

They had barely managed to dig in, straightening out the line and bringing the battered GDAF security units up when Fourth Battalion received new orders. Like a lumbering giant that had just sat down, the combined force of Fourth Battalion rose and surged forth, intent of retaking Langley before the Brotherhood had time to dig in.

* * *

"Commander!" Captain Jorgensen called over the radio as he crouched behind an APC. "I don't mean to question orders, but are you sure about this? We're leaving the Chair Force a bit exposed by breaking out this quickly." Gunfire raged overhead as a rifle squad fired squad-support weapons toward a hastily-assembled Nod position just ahead of them. The twin-linked heavy machinegun on top of the APC thundered as A Company's assault troops fanned out, using B Company's armored units as mobile cover as they stormed the perimeter of the airfield.

"We don't have time, Captain," Karrde replied to his subordinate's query as he jogged into the chaos of the control center for the port base, soldiers and airmen milling around and trying to sort out communications protocol and chain of command. D Company support troops were arguing heatedly with displaced and exhausted airmen, but the latter generally folded before the former due to Karrde's pulling of rank. "We've got an air wing's worth of Firehawks and about twice that many Orcas with no place to land, and if we can't take that airbase back soon, they'll be going down the hard way."

"Understood sir," Jorgenson's response came back a few moments later. Gunfire cracked over the comm. "We'll get these hangars and towers cleared out quick as we can, sir."

"All I'm asking, Captain," Karrde replied. He closed the comm channel and then checked with his EVA, locating all of the relative positions of his troops based on regular reports over the radio. Sky sentry was still offline, so the only way he could coordinate with his men was TWI-style radio reports. The other option, having everyone run their transponder signals "hot" and active, would simply give away their positions to Nod artillery and missiles.

Karrde paused as his EVA beeped again, and he looked up, tapping the Comcom once more as a new signal came in, not from one of his units.

"Commander Karrde," he called, recognizing the signal code as one that was being sent by someone on the same command tier.

"Commander, this is Brigadier General Kathryn Sanderson, Forty-First GDI Marine Expeditionary Unit. Be advised, we are en route to pull your asses out of the fire, _over._"

"I was unaware that my ass was on fire, ma'am," Karrde replied.

"It will be, when those three Nod regimental-sized units hit your little battalion from the north," she replied. "Don't tell me you didn't see them on Sky Sentry?"

"Running on limited intel, honestly, General," Karrde answered, stopped in place and checking the maps. "I'm assuming you've got a slightly niftier set of communications gear on the rowboat of yours, because we can't reach Sky Sentry network here."

"Standby, linking our EVAs," Brigadier Sanderson replied. "Also, be advised that I've got a division of very eager and very angry Marines loading and about to land."

"I'll remind the men to not feed the devil dogs, General," Karrde replied, and Sanderson laughed on the other end.

"Hammerheads are en-route," she added. "Be gentle."

"What's the chain here, General?" Karrde asked as new satellite data played over his map, updating his incoming intelligence with entire fields of painful-looking red dots all across the landscape to the north of Langley. Most of them looked to have landed at Hampton Roads, and they were headed for Washington D.C., but an unhealthy number were veering south, no doubt to support the Nod units whose backs they had already broken. He cursed, knowing that Army and Marine units would need to be properly coordinated to deal with this, and the Army and the Marines were rarely, if ever, completely coordinated.

"You're over there on the ground, Commander," Sanderson explained. "You've got a better grasp on things than I do, out here on my little rowboat. I'm shifting tactical command of my Marines to you until we can get this mess sorted out."

Karrde blinked, shocked. The idea of a Marine officer ceding command of their units to another branch's field commander was . . . .

"Look, Commander, I may be a salty old leatherneck," Sanderson broke in during the silence, "but I recognize that you're the one with the boots on the ground. You're the best for the job, and I don't let shit like branch pride get in the way of that. Proud corpses are useless to me. Just don't get my boys killed, understand?"

"Yes ma'am," Karrde replied, nodding. "Thank you."

"Just give me some good news, Commander," she added. "Sanderson out."

"EVA, sort out data on these Marine units," he ordered, as the comm went dead. "Don't want the jarheads stepping on each others' toes while we sweep this city clean."

He finally managed a smile, and glanced at Major Koen. Things were finally starting to look up-

"Commander!" came a yell from one of the comms officers, and Karrde looked her way. the young woman's face went pale, and she looked up at him with apprehension.

"Sir, Pentagon EVA Seven just confirmed that . . . ." She paused, taking a breath. "Nod's taken D.C."

* * *

-

* * *

_**GDI Military Archive - Combat Doctrine - Ground Operations - Infantry**_

_**Subject: GDI Reconnaissance Divisions**_

_Abstract: In traditional army operations, reconnaissance units are attached to each combat unit, typically at the company or battalion level. These recon units are a separate section of each particular formation, much like Zone Trooper platoons, armored units, and the like. Specialist units in infiltration, observation, and security, they scout ahead of regular combat units and observe and report enemy threats._

_However, in analyzing conflicts with the Brotherhood of Nod over the last forty years, GDI Tactical Development has determined that, while regular military units have decisively won battles against fixed Nod emplacements and facilities, they have a distinct lack of flexibility in hunting down disparate Nod elements. It is common for a large percentage of the personnel and materiel of a Nod operation to scatter and seem to vanish during a major GDI offensive, typically from tertiary support bases. This tendency, in conjunction with the Brotherhood's mobility, stealth capability, and decentralized nature, results in a frustrating difficulty in pinning down and decisively eliminating Nod capabilities in a particular region. It is not uncommon for GDI operations to be slowed, stalled, or even aborted because so many resources need to be directed to defending rear-echelon units, Tiberium harvesting operations, aircraft support structures, and command and communications facilities, as these scattered Nod elements conduct effective hit-and-run warfare once the main advance has already passed. Even after the primary objectives have been completed, these surviving Nod guerilla assets often simply fade away, reinforcing other Nod forces elsewhere, making it difficult to decisively destroy thier capabilities._

_GDI Recon Divisions are an answer to this Nod ability to scatter, escape, and evade. Highly-trained units combining rapid infantry assault vehicles, Zone Trooper squadrons, and large numbers of highly-trained and equipped reconnaissance specialists, these divisions are intended to spread out and hunt down hidden Nod units. When supported with air cover, these scout/assault divisions are able to quickly locate and hit Nod insurgent units. They are highly effective at high-risk recon work as well, as they have the firepower and armored support to hold their own against most threats . . . ._

* * *

_**GDI Science Division - Report on EVA Influence in the Development of Warfare Post-TWI**_

_Abstract: EVA units during the First Tiberium War were initially specialized operating systems with a degree of self-direction and initiative. They were capable of tracking the status of hundreds of soldiers and vehicles, as well as monitoring other critical information such as radar, automated security systems, and communications. They were limited in numbers, typically assigned to Field Commanders and Base Commanders whose missions or facilities were of extreme strategic importance. Though effective enough to perform rudimentary operations such as communications protocol on their own, they were still limited in their capabilities._

_By the Second Tiberium War, EVA units were able to analyze large amounts of information and develop tactical plans and strategies. They could be used to monitor and control large amounts of automated systems, and could "man" an entire perimeter of defense turrets. Their prevalence and sophistication meant that every Field or Base Commander had access to one, and this proved to be a security risk when Nod agents stole an EVA unit during the Firestorm Crisis._

_By 2043 EVA units are operating at the battalion level, and naval vessels carry several separate units. EVAs control defensive facilities and automate many functions within a base, such as power control and Tiberium refinement. Often, a Commander simply needs to issue a simple order, and the EVA handles the complex business associated with it. Calling in an air strike, for example, requires merely an authorization code and a target, and the EVA calculates and guides the pilots to their destination. These same pilots are themselves supported by EVA units that handle ground liaison, onboard systems operations, and navigation. Naval vessels are like ground bases in the level of sophistication of their EVA units. In particular, an EVA's remarkable capability to control the anti-missile and anti-aircraft phalanx of a warship has rendered carrier groups and cruise missiles obsolete in naval conflicts, returning dominance to battleships armed with batteries of heavy railguns and laser cannons . . . ._

-

* * *

Holy snotballs, this chapter took too long for me to write. Then again, I wrote it about four times, scrapping each part for a new setup, and even then I'm still not completely satisfied. The Langley battle expanded in my mind to something much bigger than it originally was, and its going to take at least one more chapter to finish.

Unfortunately, next chapter is going to be a Nod-centric one. You know that last line in this chapter, about DC falling? Expect a whole lot of elaboration on that.

Now, to address some reviews. I am aware of the upcoming Tiberium game, which looks _beautiful_ (even if I have issues with the Titan walkers - isn't GDI supposed to be phasing them out? Unless Vega is part of the Steel Talons and those guys are still around...) and while I didn't like Vega in the TW novelization, I'm interested in seeing what happens in this game. The Scrin warriors, in particular, look very interesting.

Regarding commando missions, well, wait and see. :D I've always hated limited force missions in C&C in general, and the commando missions always seemed the most unrealistic ones. I'm considering outright skipping a number of missions that don't have a huge amount of storyline relevance.

Also, one more thing: the review function for these stories is there for feedback from the readers regarding _the story written by the author._ Not, you know, as a vehicle for _bitching about what you don't like about the game the story is based off of. _I, personally, do not _give a damn_ about whether or not someone liked the game I'm writing a novelization about. When a review contains literally a single sentence about the story and spends the rest of its multi-paragraph length whining and moaning about the game rather than provide anything remotely useful to the author, someone may be missing the point. The review system is not a forum, and I would appreciate it if it was not used as such. Want to bitch about Tiberium Wars? **Go do it on EA's forums**,** not here**. I don't care, and neither does this fanfiction archive. I'll make it a point to report any such reviews for abuse of the review system in the future, per the _actual rules_ regarding the review system.

General Aurum brought up some interesting points in a recent review, regarding the use of two platoons of soldiers to rescue the pilot. While I agree that that is a small number to be expected to hold out against what is likely to be a much larger Nod force, one has to keep in mind Karrde's overall strategy, which he's more or less making up on the fly. His plan is to break the Nod troops attacking the port base and then bounce back at them, driving them out, and he expects to be able to reach and reinforce his two deployed units before they can be put in any serious danger. Also, those were the only intact platoons with all the companies intermixed, so they were the only cohesive units he could deploy quickly enough to remain cohesive on the ground and continue on toward the main objective - unit cohesion was a major limiting factor, and also he couldn't dilute his main force too much. Not to mention that two platoons of men - roughly a hundred soldiers - should be able to hold out for a little while against even a numerically superior force in urban terrain.

Until next chapter . . . .


	8. Chapter VII: Flames of Nod

_**Chapter Seven: Flames of Nod**_

_"A good officer sees numbers, locations, formulae, priorities, costs, and solutions. A bad officer sees people. War is dirty, violent, and unpleasant, but a good officer never, ever lets it become personal."_

_-Nod Battle Commander Logan Rawne _

Chips of masonry screamed past him, scraping his face as blood rained down. Sergeant Mikhail Peskov dove through it, rolling to the ground as rounds whipped over is head, tearing into his squad. Private Encida toppled backward in three pieces, shattered by a railgun round from the guard towers ringing the infidel base, and the tall, spindly structures streamed a constant barrage of cracking rounds over their heads as they crawled through the dirt beneath the ceramic wall.

"Sound off, brothers!" he shouted as he rose into a low crouch. He heard a stream of yells from fireteam leaders behind him as they reached a corner, smoke billowing ahead from a nearby apartment complex. Two men dead, out of twenty. Acceptable. As he considered his losses, civilians ran past, screaming and clutching their belongings.

"Hold your fire, noncombatants," he snapped. No need to waste shots on them.

Peskov peeked around the corner of the concrete wall, and once he saw they were all clear, he chopped a hand forward. Behind him, Corporal Sandler moved up with his five-man fireteam, and they rounded the corner, heading for the burned out apartment building. They kept low, the guard tower still chopping railgun rounds over their heads, but its attention shifting back to the east, where they'd come from. The air shuddered as a pair of Vertigo bombers roared past unseen, and then delivered their payloads.

"Door clear," Sandler reported, and Peskov moved the second and third fireteams up, while keeping his own back to cover them. Once they reached cover, Peskov finally started toward the door. They reached the apartment building without incident, and the soldiers began to spread out, sweeping the area for GDI squatters.

"Sergeant, Three," came a call over the radio as Corporal Ginnis swept the east end of the building. "Infidel armor massing north of the supply base."

"Copy," Peskov said, and sent a quick burst back to headquarters as his men finished clearing the west side of the structure. "Squads, set up firing positions, but stay out of sight until the battalion signals for the next step of the assault." He got acknowledgements as his men scattered around the building. Militia units like his were the leading edge of the main Nod advance into Washington DC, probing enemy positions and determining where gaps and hard points were located.

They'd run into a hard point, it seemed. A GDI supply base, like a half-dozen small outposts just like it, was positioned in the western districts of the city, ringed by guard towers and protected by a small garrison of troops. They hadn't even known it was there a few minutes ago, as it was flanked by several apartment buildings and smoke filled the air over the ravaged city. Space within their precious Blue Zone was so limited the enemy had been forced to spread their bases across dozens of small plots in the city. It made it hard to take them all out with airstrikes without causing massive civilian losses.

"Sergeant, infidel infantry force, thirty meters north, advancing," called Sandler. "Count twenty men at least."

"Hold fire, let them advance," Peskov ordered, hurrying along the upper floor of the building. The building itself shook as an artillery shell exploded nearby. "Wei, where's the battalion?"

"Command says our infantry and armor are hundred meters south," replied the unit's communications trooper over the radio.

"Sergeant, infidel riflemen closing on the building," Sandler reported. "Fifteen meters out and advancing by fireteams."

"Close enough on both counts," Peskov hissed as he reached the north side of the building. "Engage, in the name of Kane!"

He reached a blasted window just as his men opened up. Two GDI soldiers were out in the open when they cut loose, and they were pummeled by dozens of rounds. Many of them bounced off the composite armor they wore, but one went down, blood erupting from his legs and a shoulder. The rest of the GDI unit returned fire within a matter of heartbeats, as one of the infidels ran forward to grab his comrade and drag him to safety. Peskov shouldered his rifle, aimed for the neck joints in the armor, and put two rounds into the rescuer's throat.

The GDI soldiers poured bullets into the facade, and the Nod troops replied. Peskov had a couple of men continue firing at the wounded man lying in the open, but kept them from actually finishing him. As expected, the infidels began to creep forward toward their wounded comrade, firing as they advanced. The injured man was trying to crawl to safety, and Peskov could see him reaching toward his comrades.

Peskov snorted. The sentimental fools. Only the faithless would try to save their wounded, fearing the death that would claim them. No brother of Nod was coward enough to ask his fellows to risk their lives to save him. Aid should only be granted to those who could be saved without risking greater death in the process.

Peskov snarled as he prosecuted the infidels with the wrath of the righteous. His rifle kicked, thudding against his shoulder, rounds deflecting off armor and cutting through flesh.

* * *

Return fire bit into the ceramic beneath her chin, and she ducked back. Splinters of masonry chipped past her, the scent of burning corpses wafting through the air. Private Mari Marona dropped the nearly empty magazine from her rifle and fumbled out a fresh one, cursing viciously.

Across the room - the opulent little bedroom with its mattresses and tables and a _mirror_, of all things - Corporal Davale was firing his rifle out the second window. Private Feltan was down, bleeding from a pair of gunshot wounds in the chest, and Gunnes was with him, trying to patch up his injuries. It was up to her and the Corporal to do their work for their area. Firming her jaw, Marona rose back to the window.

GDI soldiers were scattered around the street below, moving by fireteams, pairs covering each other. A light machinegun was ripping up parts of the facade, throwing dust and chipped stone into the air. The GDI infidels were hard to see, moving fast, keeping behind vehicles or the corners of buildings or low walls, their drab gray-brown armor infuriatingly good at blending into the smoking hellscape.

There. Below, moving around a small cargo truck, two of the enemy. Marona raised her rifle, leaning forward enough for a good shot. She squeezed the trigger, loosing two quick bursts. The first tore up the mirrored street beside the lead trooper, but the second cut through his leg, two bullets tearing his left thigh to shreds. He dropped, shouting in pain, and she put another burst into the faceplate of his helmet. Blood and transparent shards erupted from his head and he flopped to the street, convincing her she'd killed the man.

A savagely hard punch collided with her shoulder, and Marona spun away, crying out in pain. She dropped to the carpeted floor of the apartment, rifle in her left hand and agony shooting up her right. She didn't even need to look to realize she'd been hit, and with a snarl, the private grabbed a vial from her belt. Popping the lid and extending the syringe, she jabbed it into her wound.

Shit, it _hurt_. The pain-killers were tortuously potent in their first few seconds, and she bit back a scream as they fried her nerve endings, dulling her pain receptors and filling the entire area with antiseptic cleanser, clotting agents, and muscle-rejuvenator. A few seconds after the initial spike of pain, it had faded into a dull ache, and the Nod soldier rose back to the window, gritting her teeth and hunting for more prey.

GDI troops were swarming in the street below by now. Missile fire was cutting past overhead, and she could hear explosions to the east as Nod units rolled up and engaged enemy armor. The storm was intensifying, and the longer they held on, the sooner their Brothers and Sisters would arrive. Then they would drive -

There was movement below, and Marona spotted the bulky backpacks, and the memory of her brother's last words seared into her mind, just before he'd been vaporized by-

* * *

"Grenadiers!" came a sudden yell of alarm from one of the troopers, and Peskov looked away from the pair of infidels he was firing at, to see another pair of GDI troops with heavy backpacks and short, stubby two-handed weapons moving up behind a low wall. They aimed their weapons at the Nod soldiers, and the Peskov yelled a warning.

"Get back!" he screamed, rising and running out of the blasted room he was in. "Get away from the windows!"

He heard acknowledgements, and then the _foomp_ of launching grenades outside. The Nod soldier threw himself to the floor, and then there was sound and heat from below, followed by screaming. Peskov rose and started running deeper into the building.

"Squad, fall back and take up ambush positions," he called over the radio. "Casualty report!"

"Three, one down, one wounded."

"Two, I have one dead, another missing his leg." Curses and cries of pain sounded over the radio.

"Get the injured deeper inside," Peskov ordered as he hurried deeper into the building. "They'll be breaching soon. Prepare for close combat." He paused over a hole blasted in what had to be a living area, which afforded him a good view of the floor beneath him. Finding a vantage point protected by a halfway-collapsed wall, the Nod soldier braced his rifle.

He waited, listening, whispering a quiet prayer while listening over the comm, his men moving into positions throughout the structure. The infidels would advance soon, and they would deny them the precious minutes the rest of the battalion needed to advance.

* * *

The street was choked with debris, broken vehicles, and the dead. Civilian, infidel, faithful . . . the human corpses lay sprawled and twisted among the wrecks and ruins, some killed by shrapnel, others scorched down to the bone by searing flames. The scent of stinking death filled the air, blood staining the mirrored road surfaces where oil and other industrial fluids hadn't, or the burn marks of countless munitions hadn't touched yet.

Brother-Sergeant Venn Allen charged down the street, keeping an eye on his helmet's HUD as his unit dashed from vehicle to vehicle. Smoke filled the air, fires burning on all sides as spilled fuel and scorched vehicles were ignited. His fireproof cape hung close about him as he clutched the flamethrower rifle tightly.

The Black Hand slid forward, death incarnate, six squads of six men each, clad in heavy armor and wielding an assortment of laser and flame-based weaponry. Behind them were two hundred Nod militia, and to their west they could hear the advance of an armored company of Scorpion tanks supported by attack buggies and bikes. Vertigo bombers roared overhead, unseen in the chaos and smoke and cloaking fields.

A platoon of their lower-ranking brothers had moved though this area already, but had met GDI light armor and infantry short of the main highway cutting across the southern part of Washington DC. They had called for reinforcements, but that had been twenty minutes ago, and the radio had gone silent. No matter how faithless the GDI scum were, Allen respected their ability to kill. He had no doubt they had crushed the sixty men that had been leading the advance, and were no doubt either digging in or preparing a counter attack.

Shots cut down the street past the team of Nod elite, and they came to a quick crouch, weapons raised and hunting for targets. The audio trackers in Allen's armor highlighted the apartment complex across the street, twenty-five meters away.

More shots, and the metal of the burned-out car before him dented under the impacts. He raised a hand, gesturing toward the target, and the laser-equipped members of his unit opened fire. Another gesture, and the flamethrower troopers slipped forward. Across the street, the other Hands were doing the same, scarlet beams flashing out and burning holes in brick and ceramic walls. Moments later, conventional gunfire and rockets joined the barrage, the light infantry adding their weapons to the assault. Incoming fire ended abruptly, the infidels cowed by hundred of guns raging away at once.

Allen moved toward the structure where the shots had come from, and paused fifteen meters out, his flamethrower raised. He could have hit it at a much longer range, but this close was his preferred distance, ensuring he was close enough that the pressure of the jets would carry the fires deep inside the building. With two quick gestures, the other two flamethrower troops fanned out, and three jets of scorching, cleansing heat erupted, joined an instant later by over a dozen more.

Their work was quick and efficient. Tongues of blazing fire leapt from their weapons' nozzles, white-hot fury engulfing the building. Allen's men divided up the front of the four-story building into individual areas of responsibility, and they put quick jets of fire into each window and doorway they saw. Glass melted, paint blistered, and ceramic wept orange tears as it melted under their wrath.

He thought he heard screaming, but over the roar of the flames, he couldn't be sure.

The front of the apartment ablaze, Allen gestured again, and the laser rifle-equipped troopers advanced. The flame troopers lowered their weapons, turning off the pilot lights that ignited the high-pressure gases, and slid them into holsters on their backs beneath their cloaks before drawing laser pistols. The six-man unit moved up to the lower doorway, and Allen kicked it in, the metal bowing under the heat and the force of the sergeant's boot.

The Black Hand swept into the burning building, safe in their fireproof suits, and hunted for any survivors. Not a word was exchanged among the Nod elite as they prowled through the apartment, beams of ruby light cutting through disoriented, confused, and in some cases _ignited_ infidel troops.

Allen sent the all-clear signal over the comm after they finished clearing the structure, and stepped out of the blazing structure, his flamethrower up and ready as they moved down an alley outside, hunting for more of the faithless to slaughter.

* * *

She crawled down the hallway, pain spiking through her leg. Snarling an oath that would make most soldiers blush, Private Mari Marona struggled to her feet. She could hear the screams of wounded men nearby, gunfire raging down below. Through the battered and blasted floor, she caught the voices of GDI soldiers as they assaulted the rooms below her.

A pang of fear shot up her, but Marona bit it down with a blast of simple, expedient hatred. She looked around the corridor, checking for her squadmates, but couldn't see much in the choking smoke after the grenade detonations. One hand gripping her rifle, she pulled down her goggles to ward off the particles in the air. Once she could see again, Marona started down the hallway, following the familiar shouts of one of the fireteam leaders somewhere ahead. Pain lanced up her left leg with each step.

Below, she heard gunfire and yells. A scream of pain, terse calls, boots slamming into wood floor panels. More gunfire, a grenade detonation.

She pushed on, looking for her squadmates, but didn't dare call out for them. Her rifle shook in her hand, and she called up her hate for their decadent, greedy lifestyle, cursing the infidels under her breath as her legs clomped and slid down the passage. It was the only way to ward off her fear.

* * *

"Squad Eight, confirm range and condition."

Corporal Emir's eyes flicked over his display, which showed a complex three-dimensional image of the surrounding cityscape.

"Confirm one hundred and three meters due west of our position, lat-long at . . . ." he rattle doff a string of numbers shown on his sensor display. "Fire for effect."

"Firing, standby," the voice replied, calm and collected. But then again, artillery operators were always calm and collected, sitting miles back from the front line, never getting stuck in like recon and spotter elements, like Emir's squad of recon bikes.

There was the distant rumble of rockets overhead, and Emir looked up between the buildings and over the blasted Predator tank his bike was nestled beside. Sheels and missiles fired from the distant artillery batteries screamed through the smoke and disappeared on the opposite side of the apartment complex. He heard the rumble of detonations and felt the tremors of the subsequent explosions. A whiff of pungent, burning flesh made its way through the air filter of his helmet, and he paused to fiddle with it, not wanting the damn thing to be leaking if a cloud of Tiberium dust settled over him.

"Fasood," he called as he worked on his helmet, "report BDA."

"Barracks complex is burning," came the call from his partner. "I see secondaries going off at the armory and motor pool. Lots of bodies." The last was delivered with a relish, and Emir nodded.

"Good job," he said, and switched back to battalion command frequency. "Command, target has been destroyed. No threats on my scope."

Up ahead, he saw movement, and a few civilians ran across the street. A moment later, a large, black-painted motorcycle the size of most light civilian cars came around the corner of one of the apartment buildings. The heavy recon bike had more than half of its mass taken up by engines and the large, heavy-duty wheels, with most of the rest of the weight taken up by the sophisticated sensors mounted in its cockpit and the anti-air missiles set on its back. The bike's driver, and the thin metal plating and armor-glass encasing him, was almost an afterthought.

"You should have seen it, Emir!" yelled Fasood as he pulled up beside his partner. "Beautiful. Must have gotten at least a hundred of them!" Emir nodded, checking his radio, and listened to th incoming reports. A few moments later, his bike's display lit up with fresh orders.

"Huh," Emir mused, frowning, and Fasood whistled.

"That what I think it is?" he asked, and Emir nodded.

"It is," he confirmed. "Division wants us to clear the way for the rest of Strike Group Babylon. Up for some more artillery spotting?"

"Long as I'm the one who gets to paint the target," Fasood replied, and Emir nodded. He closed the armored cockpit around his seat, and revved up his motorcycle. The two recon bikes pulled out of their little nook and shot down the debris-choked street.

* * *

"Strike elements within spotting distance of the main target," reported one of the company commanders, and Commander Logan Rawne nodded as he stepped out of the light troop buggy. Before him hovered a dozen holograms, displaying feeds from various units advancing through the outer reaches of Washington DC.

The suburbs had fallen swiftly enough. They had not been hit hard by the Vertigo bombardments, meaning the roads were open and undamaged. Civilians had fled to their homes, and only a few GDI units had mustered out quickly enough to intercept the light armor and rapid-assault infantry units of Rawne's insurgent force. The majority of the GDI heavy armor and infantry was tied up to the west, in the middle of a meatgrinder with General Holt's armor divisions. In the meantime, a second combined armored and mechanized infantry force, totaling twenty thousand, was striking from the east, via the captured docks at Hampton Roads, under the command of Colonel Bane. Amidst it all, insurgent units hit whatever exposed and vulnerable infrastructure they could find. Those were Rawne's responsibility.

_Distract the enemy with a broadsword, strike at his heart with a dagger._

Classic Nod strategy.

His advance units were rolling north, engaging GDI armor and infantry amidst the various business districts and apartment complexes while engineering crews established their forward bases. They'd taken a small baseball field and a few civilian structures near a subway terminal and were converting them into a forward command center and aid station, the perimeter manned by two companies' worth of militia led by several veteran units of the Black Hand. Low, long-barreled turrets were being set up, anti-infantry shredder emplacements and anti-armor laser turrets securing the street approaches as platoons of rocket and rifle-equipped militia took up positions inside structures and set up checkpoints.

His command center was abuzz with activity, the room filled with dozens of black-clad officers and technicians and alight with the red and yellow glow of holograms hovering over their heads. Rawne took it in with practiced ease, absorbing the pertinent information, calling up the casualty reports and confirming their logistics. The insurgent force thus far had suffered hundreds of losses as they moved into the city, but those casualties were a pinprick, and nothing compared to the meatgrinder in the west. On the other hand, they'd razed two GDI supply bases and taken a barracks complex, capturing hundreds of infidel troops. He rounded up a prisoner security detail to move them back past the main line of advance; the Confessors could do wonders with interrogations and conversion, and highly trained GDI infantrymen would be excellent recruits for the Black Hand if they could be convinced of the truth of Kane's gospel. If not, they made good training tools to inure the Brotherhood's soldiers to overcoming their natural human aversion to killing other people.

Two Tiberium spike farms and several large Tiberium storage silos had been captured, and engineering units were moving up to convert them as quickly as possible to their use. They would be vital to supplying and rearming their troops as they advanced through the city; Rawne expected GDI would stiffen their defense soon enough, and that the easiest parts of this campaign were quickly passing. They would need a steady flow of Tiberium to feed the local mini-factories and keep the men supplied.

Rawne finished assessing the battle, and after issuing orders to some of his reserve units, he scanned the Black Hand channels until he found a specific callsign, and grinned.

"Brother-Captain Alvarez," he said, sitting down in a chair in the middle of the operations center, the chair reserved for the commander, for _him_. "Surprised you're still kicking in this hellstorm." A barking laugh came back over the radio.

_"This is _nothing_!"_ came the Black Hand officer's reply, over the roar of an explosion somewhere in the distance. _"The riots in Rio and Mexico City were ten times more destructive than this little war."_

"If you want to believe that," Rawne replied, grinning as he remembered the havoc he'd inflicted on GDI years ago. The casualties in that massive insurrection had totaled nearly a hundred thousand. It had been glorious.

_"My Hands are advancing on the main GDI base protecting the White House," _Jose added a moment later. _"I'll save a few for you, eh? Rawne the Tank Hunter!" _Rawne himself laughed, shaking his head.

"My troops are still taking care of the main GDI presence in the southern districts of the city. When we get finished here, I'll move my men to grid Bravo Six Seven and link up with Bane's troops for the assault on the Pentagon. I want you there."

_"No promises,"_ Jose replied, chuckling. _"Alvarez out."_

"Wait, Jose," Rawne called over the radio, before his friend finished.

_"Yes?"_

"Do me a favor, for our friend, Ajay," Rawne said. "I promised him I'd do this, but I don't think I'll be able to."

_"What is it?"_

"When you take the White House, hang a Nod banner in the Oval Office, would you? And send me a capture."

_"Will do, my friend. Alvarez out."_

* * *

Brother-Captain Alvarez closed the link to his friend and turned to look down the street. He froze, listened for a moment to his command-frequency radio, and then dropped to one knee as he detected motion ahead, down the street.

The air overhead was split as a shell lanced past, and the shockwave of its passing nearly threw the Black Hand off his feet. It slammed into one of the GDI light vehicles up ahead - "Pitbulls" they were called - and punched right through its thin armor. The entire vehicle skewed around wildly, and the missile packs on its rear half cooked off a second later, the explosion ripping the remains of the vehicle in half.

Jose felt the rumble emanating through the street as one of the Scorpion tanks rolled past, its hull-mounted cannon blasting a second shot down the street and shattering a storefront where an enemy rifle squad was setting up a defensive position. The Black Hand rose, checked the status of the company he led, and signaled an advance ahead. He rose and started to move forward, beside the scarab-like tank leading the Nod armored thrust down the street, his laser rifle in hand.

The cannon roared again, the sound dampeners in Jose's helmet nearly overpowered by the roar of the tank's main weapon. Ahead, another building's face shattered inward, and the bodies of infidel troops went flying.

"Second, third squad, advance through those buildings there," Jose ordered, highlighting two multi-story businesses on one side of the street. "Fourth, move up the left side of the street. First, fifth, stick with me on the right side. All armor, maintain advance while we cover you!"

Machinegun fire cut across the street as another GDI squad set up defensive points somewhere in the buildings ahead. Missiles lanced out of the haze, screaming through the dust and hammering the street. Shrapnel skipped off Jose's armor, and the overpressure from one of the detonations sent a pair of his men flying.

He caught a flash of thermal imagery on his helmet display and zoomed in on a third-story window. His laser rifle rose to his shoulder, a target acquired, and Jose fired on the form with the heavy weapon. Scarlet beams flashed into existence, bisecting the enemy soldier and sending him toppling back behind cover, his missile launcher dropping into the street below. More blood-red bolts of light cut down the street as the Black Hand traded fire with their foes, intermixed with the occasional rush of scathing heat and fire from flamethrowers. The buildings second squad were clearing were alive with flashes of gunfire, lasers, and explosions.

A crack of the sound barrier's protests filled the air, and the second Scorpion in the mass of advancing Nod armor lurched to the side, its armor neatly cored by a hole the size of Jose's head. The turret was locked in place and the vehicle was stalled out, its engine disabled. A miniscule trail of superheated steam traced back up the street, and through the haze, Jose spotted the low, crouching form of GDI armor.

"Predator!" he warned, just as the Scorpion beside him opened fire. The shell struck the side of the GDI tank as it rotated its turret, but did little more than skip off its heavy armor. The enemy tank's barrel settled over the Scorpion, and Jose saw the armored cables and the mounted power generator feeding into its railgun. Just their foul luck that they'd encountered one of the upgraded infidel units.

Jose leapt away just as the GDI armor fired, and the railgun shell slammed into the Scorpion, punching straight through its armor plating and puncturing the ammo compartment. The entire magazine cooked off in a half-second, blasting the light tank into hundreds of screaming fragments. Jose was nearly shredded by the shrapnel, but his faith saw him through, for none of the tank's ripped components cut into him as he hit the ground. He quickly scrambled to his feet and dove behind a parked car. The Scorpion's cannon, twisted by the fire and heat, tumbled past him.

"All armor, GDI tank with railgun, one hundred and twenty meters down the street," he warned.

"Understood, Brother-Captain," called Captain Tennen, the commander of the company of Scorpions and other light armor units. "Cover us, we will engage!"

"Understood," Jose replied, cursing under his breath. The armor captain pressed his advance, and that advance was going to be bloody. That railgun could easily knock out any of their Scorpions with a single shot, and these relatively tight confines meant it took only a few tank corpses to block the roads.

"Enemy infantry," called one of Jose's squad commanders. "One hundred meters and closing under armor fire."

"All squads, acknowledge," Jose responded, and he heard the replied form his squad commanders as they noted the infidel troops. Laser fire scythed up the street as they started to engage. The air cracked again as a line of superheated air struck the immobilized Scorpion behind them, this time coring its fuel cells and setting the tank ablaze. More armor rolled up on either side of the tank's corpse, crunching over the burning remnants of the lead tank, their hull-mounted cannons blasting.

Jose rose and ran forward under the blaze of outgoing shells, reaching the corner of a building and taking cover behind it. Machinegun fire chopped down the street, and pieces of masonry were torn free of the wall as he stood behind it. Beside him, he sensed a few more of his comrades, lining up beside him against the wall. Two other Hands lay dead in the street, their armor shredded by enemy fire. He waited until the Scorpions fired another volley, and the GDI armor retorted - shattering the crew compartment of one of the Nod tanks in turn - and rolled around the corner.

He jogged up the street, firing as he ran, spotting targets on his HUD's infrared display. Jose thought he managed to wing one of the GDI troops - now less than eighty meters away - as he slid in behind an overturned truck. One of his Hands dropped to his knees, firing a couple of shots, and then toppled over as enemy fire intersected his faceplate. The others piled in behind him, and began shooting as well. Jose shot to his feet and ran around the side of the vehicle, hurrying for a doorway a few meters ahead while his fireteam covered him.

Round skipped off the reflective pavement at his feet, and two deflected off his body armor. A line of fire cut through his flying cape, shredding part of it, but he reached the corner safely and began firing. His sights fell over another GDI soldier, ducking back behind cover to reload, and a crimson beam cut through his upper torso.

There was a flash of light, and a plume of flame, and down the street, the GDI tank's rear portions were set ablaze. Three Nod tanks rolled up the street, firing as they advanced, their shells hammering the GDI vehicle's heavy armor as it tried to retreat, backing up the street. The trio of Scorpions fired on the infidel vehicle at once, with one shell blasting out the targeting sensors mounted on the front of the tank, and the other two crashing into the turret and penetrating. The Predator's upper portion blew apart a couple of seconds later as its ammunition cooked off.

A cheer ran up the Nod lines from the regular infantry, and Jose permitted himself a grim smile as he covered the rest of his fireteam's advance. The Nod tanks dashed forward, Scorpion cannons blasting at the GDI infantry as they scrambled for cover, and Jose gunned down any he saw. Missiles and bullets flew back and forth from the GDI and Nod positions, and the Brotherhood ground onward, seizing the Zone block by bloody block.

* * *

The infidels moved into the room below, three men, rifles out and spreading through the chamber, sweeping for hostiles. Peskov grinned, sighted one man's helmet, and squeezed the trigger.

The burst slammed into his helmet, and the GDI trooper jerked back. A second burst put another volley into his throat and faceplate, and them man toppled to the debris-strewn floor. Immediately, the Nod soldier ducked back, and a second later bullets cut through where he'd been standing. The Nod trooper drew a grenade from his belt and primed it, before tossing it over his cover. There were shouts from below, followed by the detonation, and by that time Peskov had already retreated further into the building.

Gunshots slammed into the ceramic around him, infidel troops pursuing Peskov on the same floor. He dove through a doorway and rolled over as he hit the carpet, firing behind him. There were shouts and a cry of pain, and he hurried through the room beyond - a mostly intact living room - and came into a hallway lined with windows on one side.

Two GDI soldiers emerged from a doorway a few meters further down, sweeping into the corridor, and Peskov leapt at them, emptying his rifle's magazine as he closed. One man went down, and the Nod soldier crashed into the second, dragging him down in a tangle of limbs and armor plating. Cursing and snarling, Peskov pulled his knife out of its sheath as the GDI trooper rolled over on top of him, pinning him to the floor. The knife jabbed up, inside the enemy soldier's armpit, and his body jerked. With a savage grunt, the Nod fighter pushed the dying man off him, drew his sidearm, and shot the writhing soldier in the face.

Peskov stood up, and then fell to the floor, his right leg going numb. The sergeant looked down, and pain erupted up the length of his body as he saw his leg had been severed at the calf, blasted in two, the flesh partially cauterized by the sheer speed and heat of the round that had hit him.

Sniper. It had to have been a sniper, shooting through the windows with one of their damned railgun rifles. GDI and their _goddamned_ railguns.

Gritting through the pain, the Nod soldier began pulling himself along the floor, away from where he fell. A second later, a portion of the wall exploded, a round cutting through right where he'd fallen seconds earlier. Whoever the sniper was, he was smart.

Through the pain and the blood streaming from his blasted leg, Peskov heard voices and boots on the thin carpet just up the corridor. He gritted his teeth, sat up, and shouldered his rifle as GDI troops stormed into the passage.

"Kane lives!" he shouted.

Gunfire filled the hall.

* * *

Brother-Sergeant Allen dropped to one knee, snapping a hand forward, pointing with two fingers. A pair of armored forms slipped past, Brother-Corporals Gill and Bensworth sweeping ahead with laser and flame rifles shouldered. They advanced down the street, pausing beside a blasted car. A GDI soldier lay beside it, riddled with bullets. Gill drew his sidearm and shot the body in the throat, just to be sure.

An all-clear flashed on Allen's HUD, and he ordered the second pair of his six-man unit forward. The Black Hand spread out, moving across the street with speed and efficiency. Allen's eyes flicked over his display, marking the presence of the light militia infantry following his Hand pickets, clearing the buildings behind them.

The street was secured, and Allen took the lead, pushing past his covering troops with Corporal Gill at his back. They plunged into a nearby alleyway, and then the audio scanners of his helmet picked up gunfire ahead. A quick thought had his HUD updating with the audio profiles of the weapons, revealing several different weapons being discharged about fifty meters ahead, inside a blasted structure. Half of them were GD4s, the rest mostly M-16 Mark IIs. A check of his maps showed Nod scout units and platoons had advanced into this area a few minutes before, ahead of a mechanized push by Babylon Group.

His troops filed into the alley behind him as the Black Hand officer pressed forward. He contacted other Hand units, warning them of the possible GDI contacts up ahead, and then advanced, cape billowing behind his armor as Kane's elite continued their inexorable advance.

* * *

The first infidel collapsed backward, blood erupting from his neck. Peskov held down the trigger on his rifle, spraying the passage, but was aware of more gunfire from behind him. The GDI soldiers dropped back behind cover, sending quick bursts and single shots down the corridor, ripping up the masonry around Peskov. Bursts lanced up and down the passage, and the Nod sergeant felt his weapon run empty, clicking in the chaotic firestorm. Snarling a curse at the infidels, he dropped the rifle and drew his sidearm.

A hand grabbed him by the shoulder of his fatigues as he fired away, his rounds wildly deflecting off the doorways and walls around the infidels. There was the roar of a rifle being fired directly overhead, suppressive fire ripping through the corridor. He kept firing and shouting litanies of hate at his enemies as he was pulled into a doorway.

He looked up, and saw one of his soldiers, bleeding from multiple wounds, including one to her leg. Her brown hair was loose and singed, and her eyes were shielded by a pair of goggles.

"Marona," he grunted, and she nodded as she reloaded her weapon frantically. "Where is the rest of the squad?"

"I didn't see any alive," she replied, and leaned out, firing a burst. "I think we're the only survivors."

"Well, fuck me if I'm dying like this without a fight," he snarled, starting to crawl toward the door, reloading his pistol clumsily. Marona leaned back to say something when she saw movement down the passage. She jerked back-

A muffled _pow_ exploded in the corridor outside, and the woman let out a scream of pain as the fragmentation grenade went off. Shrapnel dug into her light flak armor, seared along her cheek, and punched through her goggles.

Private Marona flopped to the floor, screaming and clawing at her eyes, blood streaming through her fingers. Peskov twisted back toward the door raising his pistol as a GDI trooper came around, rifle high as he began clearing the room. The weapon jerked down toward the prone Nod soldiers.

Peskov squeezed the trigger, his sights already aligned. The first round slammed into the GDI soldier's rebreather, mounted over his nose, chin, and mouth, and the man's head snapped back from the force of the impact. Another shot put a round into his neck, and he toppled backward, gagging and choking.

A second soldier was sweeping into the room, sidestepping around his fallen comrade and firing. Rounds splintered into the concrete floor beside Peskov, and pain lanced through his gun arm as a bullet bit into his bicep. He fired at the same time, ignoring the pain, a round scoring the infidel's shoulder and skipping off the armor. A second shot deflected off the plating on the soldier's flank, but flew up into the man's armpit. He let out a cry, falling to the side.

More gunfire erupted from beside him, and Peskov saw Marona's pistol firing in his peripheral vision as he kept shooting. Blind shots went toward the door, half of them hitting the wall in the woman's agonizing blindness. Peskov fired again, putting another round into the wounded trooper's helmet and penetrating.

Outside, he heard the GDI soldiers shouting something, and he heard the words he feared the most.

"Frag out!"

* * *

Up the corridor, he spotted motion, and raised his pistol.

There was a flash of scarlet light, and Brother-Sergeant Allen moved forward, firing his laser pistol. Beside him, Brother-Corporal Gill scythed shots up the passage with his rifle, and their shots seared through GDI plate armor like it was paper. they kept firing, beams lighting up the hallway with bloody illumination, followed by short, tortured screams.

As he moved up, he saw the crumpled enemy troopers were lying around a doorway, and he and Gill swept into the room beyond. There was nothing standing in the room, but on the floor . . . .

"Medical," he hissed over the comm, marking this position, and gestured to Gill while stepping back out into the corridor. He swept the passage beyond, and crouched, covering the approach.

* * *

Peskov looked up, shocked to see the enormous figure towering over him, and then turning away. Clad in heavy black armor, with a flying red cape tattered from gunfire, his visor glittering with blood red damnation and condemnation for their enemies.

A Black Hand of Kane.

The second Hand crouched beside Marona, producing bandages and medical supplies, and wordlessly began to attend to her grievous eyes wounds while the first kept the hallways covered. Peskov let the adrenaline start to flow away, and began to feel cold. He looked down at his bisected leg, the wound partially cauterized by the heat of the railgun round that had torn it off.

His arms felt weak, and he let himself slump down to the floor, darkness claiming him. He saw the Hand turn his head to face him, the visor regarding the fallen soldier with mechanical detachment for a moment, and then Sergeant Peskov slid into the shadows.

* * *

"Jose? You got good news for me?"

Brother-Captain Jose Alvarez fired two shots from his rifle, coring the torso armor of a GDI soldier in a window one hundred and nine meters ahead.

"Very good news," he replied, dropping back behind cover. He waited until the Scorpion company loosed another volley before speaking.

"We're within half a kilometer of the objective," he reported, standing back up and peering over the battlefield beyond. A full thirty-nine Scorpion tanks, supported by close to a thousand Nod infantry and two companies of Black Hand, were ripping through the outer perimeter of the GDI Logistics Command Center, and enormous and important-looking building that towered overhead. Vertigo bombers screamed past in the air somewhere above them, releasing their payloads somewhere out of sight. GDI troops were falling back or being cut down where they stood, their watchtowers and anti-armor cannons being shattered under the massed Nod armor assault. As he watched, two of the Scorpions burst into flames at the hands of a pair of Predator tanks, but the return fire was a devastating barrage of shells and missiles that obliterated the offending armor.

And beyond the unrelenting assault, the fleeing defenders, and the vulnerable GDI building, Brother Captain Alvarez saw his true target: the White House.

"You see it?" Rawne asked, and Jose nodded.

"We will claim it for Nod within the hour," he hissed. "Just make sure the camera crews are ready to show us in our moment of triumph."

* * *

_**GDI InOps Archives - Classified: Eyes Only - Report on Brotherhood of Nod Factional Organization**_

_**Abstract: **__One of the Brotherhood's most troubling tendencies is its capability to survive damage to its overall hierarchy and command structure. Elimination of key Nod officers does little to slow the Brotherhood down, with the noted exception of the death of Kane at the end of the Second Tiberium War and his apparent death in the First. This is in part due to the semi-independent nature of the Brotherhood's armies and factions. Each of the highest-ranking Nod officers (often referred to as Kane's "Inner Circle") commands a large portion of Nod's forces, but each officer operates on their own._

_This organizational doctrine is believed to have originated in the First Tiberium War, where Nod assembled much of its army from disparate military and mercenary organizations across the globe, and a strong degree of local autonomy was required to keep these semi-independent groups loyal and able to operate without central control. An example of this would be General Gideon Raveshaw's Black Hand units, which operated largely outside the control of other Nod officers, answering only to Kane himself. With their defeat in the First Tiberium War, high-ranking Nod officers began to assert more direct control, bringing large territories under their heel, but at the same time bringing the individual Nod commanders into conflict over how to best carry on their operations without the guidance of Kane to direct them. GDI attempted to exploit this by manipulating each officer against the other, and this worked well until Anton Slavik, Raveshaw's successor in command of the Black Hand, chose to overthrow General Hassan, uniting the Brotherhood's disparate factions under the banner of Kane._

_By now, InOps has confirmed that there ware several dozen individual military factions within the Brotherhood vying for control. Each faction has its own particular officer it follows, and these officers have built up cults of personality around themselves. The troops in these armies are believed to owe near-absolute loyalty to their leaders, with only the memory of Kane himself standing above them. Among these officers are men such as the Black Hand commander Marcion, or General Killian Qatar, who is suspected to have reached a near-parity with Kane himself in how highly regarded she is within Nod . . . ._

--

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Sorry about the delay in putting this out. I got sidetracked by a lot of concerns, and other projects.

To respond to a point in a few of the reviews regarding walkers . . . well, I'll state it in no uncertain terms. _I don't like walkers._ That is, I don't like _humanoid_ walkers. Quadrapedal or more leggy walkers are cool, but humanoid ones I just don't like all that much, from a purely militaristic standpoint of blunt practicality. There's all the standard reasons why no one has seriously considered using walkers as combat vehicles, like the logistics problems relating to constant maintenance of their legs, weight distribution, height vulnerability, the massive vulnerability of their legs, and so on. Walkers are _not_ practical weapons, _especially_ not the - and I am completely unafraid to say this - the downright _retarded_ walker designs in Command and Conquer. The Titan (both new and old versions) make my head hurt wondering who designed them, and the Avatar is just plain silly. So a bit of warning: that contempt for humanoid walkers might show in the next few chapters. I'm going to show _why _GDI abandoned them, and _why _Nod is using them now, and why I feel tanks outclass them.

Now, that said, the upcoming chapters are going to have some serious combat in them, as well as some character development. Mostly, though, we're heading for the Pentagon seige, but that's still a few chapters away. Got to have some lead-in, which will include a certain aging commando doing something that is going to have Nod in a huffy tizzy...

Until next chapter . . . .


	9. Chapter VIII: Grit

_**Chapter Eight: Grit**_

_"They said Langley was make or break. They were right, but they kind of forgot that _everything _in those first forty-eight hours was make or break. We held, or we died. With Nod, there is no middle ground."_

_-Sergeant Victor Merchan, Third Platoon, A Company, 4th Battalion, 5th Regiment 103rd GDI Recon Division_

"That thing is _huge_." Private Evan Blunt stared up from behind the low wall as the enormous obsidian shape thundered past, red sensor apparatus gleaming as its arm-mounted cannon scanned for targets.

"I've seen bigger," Havoc replied, nonchalant, watching the Avatar through a set of binoculars that had previously belonged to a Nod officer. That man, and three of his subordinates, were now piled behind a dumpster and stripped of their gear.

It had been four hours since the zone walls had been breached, and Nod armor and troops were still pouring in. The GDI defenders were putting up a dogged resistance, but the sheer weight of Nod numbers and the speed of their assault was driving them back. Somewhere in the middle of all of this was a squad and a half of GDI infantry plucked from one foxhole or another, led by a man twice as old as the eldest soldier in the bunch, and with more combat experience in one ass-cheek than the rest of the group put together.

"You think we can take that thing down, sir?" asked Corporal Duggin, one of the Zone Security troopers who had survived the withdrawal. Duggin was a big man in his mid-twenties, carrying a GDM-12 9.5mm heavy machinegun, and kept his eyes on the alley behind them.

"Hell no," Colonel Parker replied. "And don't call me 'sir.' I'm retired." He lowered the binoculars, frowning.

"What we need are bigger guns, and that RPG isn't going to do much more than scratch that big stomper's paint. I'd go for a Mammoth tank, or a Godsend laser designator and a good uplink, but all we've got are these Nod piles of crap."

"IED, Colonel?" Blunt asked, an idea hitting him, and Parker glanced back to him. "Take off a leg, immobilize it?"

"Where we gonna get what we need?" he asked, and a second later, he was answered by the blast of firing Nod artillery nearby. A very, very evil grin spread across Havoc's face.

"Come on, boys, we're gonna go visit Santa's sleigh," he said, and moved away from the wall. The troops glanced between each other, and then moved to follow.

* * *

A five-man fireteam was moving down the street, moving past the parachute that marked where Skull Four had gone down. Lieutenant Enmas Fariq had managed to get himself unstrapped and away from the sheet of white cloth only moments before they'd arrived, and the Nod troops were fanning out, hunting for their prey. Chasing down enemy pilots was a time-honored tradition in modern warfare, and this war was no different.

He gripped his pistol tight in his right hand as he hurried down a nearby alley. Fariq could hear voices behind him, running boots over distant explosions. His eyes swept across the alley, looking for a doorway or something-

He heard a yell behind him, from the mouth of the alley, and spun. Fariq dropped to one knee, raising his pistol as he did so, and fired two shots before he could get proper sight alignment. His first round went high, skipping a chunk of masonry off one of the alley walls, while the second grazed the looming figure at the mouth of the alley as it raised its rifle. The Nod trooper recoiled, ducking for cover, and Fariq's next shot caught the trooper in the hip. The enemy soldier tumbled out of sight, just as two more appeared, firing as they came around the corner. Bullets slammed into the wall beside Fariq, and he dove behind a dumpster. The metal rang with hollow impacts, the Nod troops spraying the pilot's cover.

The gun blasts were then joined by a second set, with a slightly different pitch, and the Nod troops' fire slackened. Fariq poked his head just out of cover, to see the enemy soldiers firing down the street. It only lasted for a couple of seconds before the fanatics were cut down, and a few moments later two familiar and extremely comforting figures appeared at the mouth of the alley, clad in GDI fatigues and armor.

"Friendlies, at your twelve," Fariq yelled, holding up his hand and slowly rising. The two troopers jogged over, while other soldiers moved into the alley, covering the mouth.

"Sir, are you injured?" one of the soldiers asked, the insignia on the front of his armor identifying him as a Corporal Rodigo.

"No, I'm fine," Fariq replied, exhaling with relief that his pickup had arrived so quickly.

"Sir, we're your extraction team," Rodigo continued. "I'll ask you to stick with Private Jinna and PFC Terrence. Please retune personal radio to one seven two nine one." He pointed to the pair of soldiers, and Fariq nodded. Rodigo hurried to the mouth of the alley and crouched by his men, while Fariq knelt next to the two men appointed as his bodyguards.

"First Platoon, this is Bravo, we have the package," Rodigo was saying into his radio. "We are fourteen meters east of marker five."

"Copy, Bravo, Charlie is thirty meters to your south. More friendlies converging on your position."

The distant pop of gunfire trailed the last words of the conversation. A few seconds later, reports filtered in over the radio of C Company's Third Platoon engaging Nod forces a block south of their position. Fariq listened closely as he heard more reports from the GDI squads moving through the area, and within a few moments the picture became clear: a large Nod force, at least company-sized, was closing in on them from all directions.

"Bravo, we're moving inside," Rodigo ordered, and signaled three of his troops, the ones who weren't protecting Fariq, to secure the business behind them. As they moved out, the pilot edged forward and grabbed one of the M16 MkII rifles dropped by the Nod soldiers, stripping the dead man of his ammunition.

At the very least, Lieutenant Fariq intended to make a good accounting of himself.

* * *

First contact with the Nod troops west of Langley went to Charlie Squad, First Platoon, A Company. It was a twelve-minute firefight, with the six-man rifle squad and the platoon's four-man grenadier team, Echo, against a dozen Nod light militia. Firing first from cover, Charlie and Echo intercepted and eliminated half the Nod unit before forcing the rest of the militia to withdraw. The GDI troops suffered no losses.

Second contact went to the men of Bravo Squad, eliminating the Nod fireteam that had been chasing the Lieutenant, mere moments after Charlie and Echo engaged their opponents.

The third contact, before the Nod troops assaulted the extraction units in force, went to Charlie Squad, Third Platoon, C Company.

Rounds ripped through the air, cracking past Corporal Mitchell Colt as he moved up from cover. He immediately ducked and scrambled low, bullets deflecting off the reflective pavement at his feet and smashing into car windows. Colt slid into cover beside a low wall, with two more troops from Charlie dropping in beside him; PFCs Gillard and Jordan. Like Colt, Gillard carried a standard GD4 assault rifle with integral grenade launcher, while Jordan, one of the squad's two designated marksmen, had forgone the 40mm launcher for an improved optics array.

"Shots, direction?" Colt asked, checking his squad's positions. Private Falks and PFC Wells were twelve meters west, behind an overturned truck. Charlie had been moving up a side street and had reached a T-shaped intersection running west when the shots started.

"Seventy meters west, down the street," Wells called back. "I have movement, unknown number of hostiles."

"Alpha, we are taking fire," Colt called over his radio, moving up the wall while signaling Gillard and Jordan to hold position. Rounds skipped off the concrete wall, and he stepped over the sprawled body of a dead civilian, the man's head torn in half.

"Contact here," replied Sergeant Havers over the radio. "We're forty-five west of you, next street over, moving up. First, A, is reporting heavy contact too."

"Copy," Colt replied, checking his HUD. Personnel locators matched up with the sergeant's report, and his squad was advancing to flank the Nod troops shooting at them. "Charlie, see anything?"

"Multiple squads advancing toward us," Gillard replied, peering through his rifle's optics. "Advancing by fire-and-maneuver."

"Return fire," Colt ordered, and he'd barely spoken before Gillard squeezed off two quick single shots. The Corporal rose behind cover and sighted down his rifle's scope, zooming in on the Nod troops. Rounds cracked toward him, and he fired a quick burst before dropping back behind cover. A few meters down, Jordan let a burst loose, then a second one. Colt heard the chatter of Wells' GDM-12 loose a protracted burst, and then another one, interspersed with Falks' own fire. As they opened up, Colt rose again, sighting and firing another pair of bursts.

The sudden, staggered barrage of return fire caught several of the advancing Nod soldiers in the open. Colt took one in the torso with one of his bursts, ripping it open, and another dropped to the street as Gillard's single shot tore through his lungs. Others ducked and dove for cover as Wells' heavy machinegun sliced through the intersection, and fire from Falks and Jordan picked targets and sent at least two more enemy soldiers tumbling to the glossy pavement. Blood leaked on the mirrored surface, staining the street and sidewalks.

"Cover and advance," Colt snapped over the comm, stilling his nerves as best he could. "Falks, Jordan, move up."

The two riflemen broke off their fire and started forward, Falks cutting around the truck and Jordan moving around the wall. Both men bolted from cover to cover, with precise fire from their squadmates keeping the Nod force down the street pinned in place. Colt saw plentiful movement through his scope, and felt his blood begin to run cold even as he scored a beautiful mid-torso shot on a Nod trooper breaking from cover.

"Gillard, you seeing this?" he hissed. The marksman fired again, barely missing an enemy soldier peeking from a doorway. Wells' fire perforated the doorjamb and the man beyond, sending him toppling to the ground amidst a cloud of white dust and broken shards of ceramic.

"That's at least a platoon-sized-" Gillard's words stopped, and he was silent for a second, apparently spotting something with his augmented optics.

"God in heaven," the marksman said, his voice tinged with barely suppressed fear.

"What?" Colt asked.

"Black Hand!" Gillard breathed. "Black Hand squad, one hundred meters and closing!"

* * *

The engines rumbled, the screen before him was flashing, the cannon in his hands was thrumming with power, and the ground ahead of him was ablaze with the wash of gunfire and flames. His eyes flicked over his HUD, searching the ground below, and checking the firing vectors of his squad as they descended. Calculations, distances, targeting data and solutions, all of it rolled over his eyes, and as the information slid together, he felt a tiny jolt. Armored boots hit the pavement, and he took a couple of steps forward with the momentum of his jump.

A Nod armored truck was directly ahead, with one of their light raiding buggies next to it. The buggy's machinegun was whipping around when First Lieutenant Wallace raised his railgun and cored it with a single sound-shattering shot. The slug punched through the armor, pulping the driver and bisecting the gunner, before blasting out the back end of the buggy and tearing off one of the truck's tires.

Two more railgun rounds flashed past, hitting the truck, blasting its engine and its cargo compartment. Fire erupted from the vehicle. The last Zone Trooper in Wallace's squad fired past the truck, striking a Nod soldier running to cover. The shot was overkill; shooting infantry with anti-armor railguns was like crushing roaches with cars.

Wallace highlighted the burning truck ahead, and his troops moved up, taking cover behind it. The Lieutenant checked his satellite uplink, and cursed as he got a wash of static for his troubles. Local radar was being jammed too, and the smoke, dust, and electrical interference was playing hell with his suit's sensors. He could see enemy troops and vehicles, but exact positions were fuzzy, which made the Zone Troopers' favored lightning-fast pop-and-shoot tactics harder.

Hostile forces were everywhere in the hangar complex, and more Nod troops were streaming toward them. The air was thick with the black smoke of fuel fires and the occasional eerie green glow from scattered Tiberium, probably spread from Nod vehicles or aircraft that used liquid Tiberium fuel. Containment crews would need to be scrambled immediately after they drove the lunatics out of this place.

The far side of the truck rang and resounded with impacts as enemy troops opened fire from somewhere beyond. The blasts were powerful, concentrated individual shots of razor-sharp, high velocity flak, and bit into the wounded metal of the vehicle. Wallace considered stepping out to locate the enemy, but decided not to risk it. His armor was tough, but not invincible.

The Zone Troopers were agile, precision fire support. With their jumpjets and heavy railguns, they could direct devastating anti-armor fire anywhere on the battlefield. Yet that for all their firepower, Zone Troopers were clad in large, bulky suits of armor with delicate computer networks and sensors. They were big, they were clumsy, and their railguns took enormous amounts of the suits' limited power. The railguns themselves took long, painful seconds to recharge between shots, and for a Zone Trooper, a single missed shot could easily kill the soldier.

Wallace recognized his limitations on this battlefield, and didn't hesitate to call for backup.

"Zulu One, taking fire from shredders," Wallace called over the radio. "Does anyone have eyes on shooters?" Two seconds passed as Wallace's squad crouched, and he checked his radar and troop positions. Zulu Two was covering two squads of riflemen from Second Platoon as they swept a hangar, while Zulus Three, Four, and Five were supporting B Company's Predators, Pitbulls, and Guardian APCs as they met a Nod armor push near the main runway. Zulu Six was engaging Nod infantry with a platoon from C company to the east, near the ruins of the control tower.

"Zulu One, Two Bravo," came a reply over the radio, a woman's voice. There was a burst of gunfire. The speaker's name flashed over Wallace's HUD: Corporal Welkan, in charge of Second Platoon's Bravo Squad.

"Spotted shooters, with emplaced shredders, eighty meters northeast of your position," she continued. Wallace checked his map.

"Hangar bay?" he called back. The truck shook with another impact from the heavy weapons.

"Yeah," she answered. Wallace targeted that location, and knew his squadmates were doing the same. He waited the second and a half it took for his onboard computer to calculate the firing angles and vector, and then signaled his troops.

Two Zone Troopers swept around on either side of the truck, raising their railguns as they moved. As one, their rifles fell on the hangar bay indicated, where a group of Nod troops were clustered around a single large, multi-barreled heavy weapon nearly twice a man's height. The shredder emplacement turned to face the Zone Troopers, and then evaporated as four supersonic slugs cracked the sound barrier and blew it apart.

"Hangar entrance is clear," Wallace called over the radio, sweeping the area with his railgun and scanning for hostiles.

"Copy that," Welkan replied. "Bravo, advance and cover, secure that hangar! Zulu One, can you cover us?"

"With pleasure, Corporal," Wallace replied. Behind him, the Lieutenant spotted the six-man rifle squad detaching from cover and advancing by pairs. They came up beside the heavily armored troopers and hurried past, stacking up beside the side door. Wallace quietly tapped into their helmet camera feeds and spread it to the rest of his squad. There was a flash of a breaching charge, and the riflemen piled into the room beyond, weapons high. As soon as they entered, Wallace began receiving a collated image of the interior of the structure, and spotted gunfire coming from a catwalk directly overhead. Welkan's riflemen exchanged flurries of fire with the Nod troops inside.

"Zulu One, indirect cover fire, my lead," Wallace commanded, elevating his railgun. He had a rough idea of where the Nod shooters were based on the riflemen's cameras. His troops did the same, and fired as one.

Four railgun rounds ripped through the outer skin of the hangar, slashed across the room beyond, and hammered the catwalk. Unsurprisingly, none of the rounds hit the Nod soldiers, but the projectiles shook and twisted the catwalk, pitching at least one Nod trooper off the walkway and disorienting the others. Welkan's riflemen took the brief respite by the throat, a fullisade of shots tearing into the Nod troops overhead and killing three of them. The rest either tried to retreat or stand their ground, but by that time Wallace's aim had been corrected and his railgun was recharged.

The next barrage punched through the walls and tore part of the catwalk free, spilling a quartet of Nod troopers to the floor some fifteen meters below. Wallace didn't see their impacts on the helmet cameras, but his imagination filled in the details.

Two minutes later, Welkan's squad reported the hangar clear, with no casualties. Seconds after they received the all-clear, Wallace and his Zone Troopers received new orders, and jetted away to another hotspot on the smoke-stained battlefield, trading thanks with the rifleman squad.

* * *

_"Scorpion, two-ten meters!"_

_"Clear target! Fire!"_

As he heard those words shouted in his left ear, Corporal Tanner dropped to his knees. Twenty meters to his right, Avenger One-Two, callsign "Hard Knock," shattered the air with a thunderblast that sent waves of displaced air over the Corporal's armor plating, shaking his bones. If his ears hadn't been protected by his helmet, they would have been popped by the changing air pressure. As it was, they were left ringing.

Two hundred and ten meters away, a Nod Scorpion lurched as its drive section flew apart.

Tanner rose, shouldering his rifle, and dashed forward to an overturned truck, with Private Hall mirroring his movement ten meters to his right. Once he hit cover, Tanner covered his fire sector and waved the next two troopers forward. The rumble of the Predator's topside machinegun filled the air as the gunner hosed Nod positions across the runway. Enemy troops had taken position near the fuel processing and storage center, fortifying the area, apparently well aware that the Predators couldn't fire directly on them with their main guns. A stray shell hitting the fuel tanks could wipe out half the airbase.

Nod taking cover in areas that couldn't be directly bombarded wasn't anything new. They'd done it since the First Tiberium War, back when they had an iron grip over the media and could turn every civilian casualty into a Stalin-esque atrocity. GDI knew how to deal with this, and the Commander had issued orders to the effect.

Tanner and the rest of Alpha Squad, First Platoon, C Company had moved into position to provide covering fire, along with two other platoons from A Company. Sniper, rifle, and machinegun fire roared up and down their end of the runway, the small arms keeping the Nod troops occupied while not risking penetration of the armored fuel tanks.

At the same time, the four Predators of B Company's First platoon bolted forward, rolling across the tarmac with pintle-mounted machineguns raking the Nod positions. Enemy fire rang off the armor of the medium tanks, and a pair of rockets screamed out of the Nod fortifications, exploding against the hull of the Avenger One-Two. All four tanks brought their machineguns to bear against the point the missiles had emerged from, hosing the area with a storm of rounds that chewed up a cluster of transport trucks and baggage carts.

The Predators took fire from nearly every Nod position, even taking flak shells from the emplaced shredder cannons. That was fine, though. The tanks were tough, and more importantly, they were simply a distraction.

B Company's Fourth Platoon, in a quintet of Guardian APCs, was already rolling up behind the Predators, using them as a shield, and while Nod troops focused their fire on the tanks, the six-wheeled armored vehicles hit the eastern end of the Nod positions. The Guardians were almost on top of the Nod troops before announcing their presence with the twin heavy machineguns on top of their hulls, and then the armored vehicles rammed the hasty barricades Nod had erected. Overturned trucks and collections of crates and empty fuel drums were thrown aside, and a few Nod soldiers were crushed under the massive wheels of the combat vehicles.

Side and rear-mounted hatches dropped down on the sides of the APCs facing away from the enemy, and the riflemen of Fourth Platoon stormed down the ramps, circling around the vehicles with weapons up and firing.

The soldiers in these squads were specialists in close assault, clad in heavy composite armor and adept at fighting from APCs. They were "armored fist" units: GDI's weapon of choice for breaching enemy lines and overpowering enemy troops in tight, intense combat inside their own lines.

Corporal Herren Bendis ran from the side of his APC under the covering fire of a dozen machineguns, both light and heavy. Behind him he counted PFCs Garth and Enkis, the latter carrying his GDM-12. Bendis fired from his hip as he ran for one of the garages beside the fuel depot, understanding that fire superiority used in conjunction with raw momentum was their best weapon in this corner of the battlefield. Behind and around him, half of Fourth Platoon's riflemen stormed forward under the cover of the Guardians and their squadmates, and quickly drove the surprised Nod light infantry backward. A dozen of the enemy were left dead by the time Bendis reached the garage's side entrance.

"Bravo Squad, stack up!" he yelled over the radio. Every squad had an area of responsibility; Bravo had been tasked with clearing the garages beside the fuel depot, receiving their orders less than a minute before the Guardians had stormed the enemy's flank, meaning that less than three minutes ago he had no idea he'd be planting a concussive charge on the door in front of him. Seconds later, the rest of Bravo was lined up behind him, the rear two troopers swinging around to cover their backs. The Corporal finished attaching the explosive and spun around behind Garth, who was going to be point man in the assault.

"Blowing charge!" Bendis shouted, blasting the door inward. The world around him shook, smoke flashing past his helmet's visor, and then he was rushing forward.

"_Breaching_!" shouted Garth as he rolled into the room beyond, rushing through the smoke with his rifle up, covering the right and stepping forward. Bendis was right behind him, charging straight in, and felt PFC Alquis to his rear, rushing in and taking the left.

Gunfire flashed, close, loud, and vicious. Bendis spun toward the shots and the movement, and felt impacts along his torso, rounds flattening against his heavy ceramic body armor. His rifle replied as soon as Bendis spotted movement, and there was a spray of blood.

Shouts, gunfire, flashes of chaos, movement. Bendis heard his heartbeat pumping above it all, his breathing ragged and tight and omnipresent. Smoke choked his eyesight through his visor, and he didn't have time to think of turning on his thermals. There was only gunfire, his squad, the enemy, cover, and moving forward. He knew his sector, and cut into it, firing at another source of movement. An enemy went down screaming, and Bendis didn't hesitate to fire a second pair of shots into the downed trooper.

Boots hammered the floor as Bravo surged across the interior of the garage, blood running down the concrete as they swept and cleared. The chaos did nothing to slow them; they had trained for close-assault since they'd graduated from Boot, and could clear a room like this blindfolded. Every movement was rote, hammered muscle memory forged by a century of experience in close-combat room-clearing.

Bendis was then at the far end of the garage, standing over a fallen Nod trooper. He wasn't sure if the body was dead, and put another burst into the man's chest.

"Clear!" he shouted.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"All clear!" Bendis called, checking his squad's status on his HUD. No injuries. Nine dead Nod soldiers. A new objective flashed across his HUD, and Bendis got his squad together and back outside the garage, heading north toward the main fuel tanks seventy meters away. He didn't have time to catch his breath or let the adrenaline dissipate. He had momentum, and he damn well intended to use it.

On the other end of the Nod flank, Fifth Platoon had struck, their APCs punching through the Nod resistance on their end and pinning a company-sized enemy force between two advancing GDI armored fist platoons, with three more rifle platoons charging across the tarmac behind the advancing Predators.

Within fifteen minutes, the fuel depot had been cleared. Nod had taken one hundred and six casualties. The armored fists of B Company's Fourth and Fifth Platoons lost only three men.

* * *

" . . . and as you can probably see, its hard to penetrate the smoke and chaos down here," called reporter Emily Wong into her headset. "We've seen large numbers of what look like Nod soldiers moving through the streets here with some kind of tanks supporting them. I think you can hear it back there, but there's a constant rumble of artillery fire. I can feel it in my bones, I'm sure Tim can too."

They were standing at a corner somewhere in the eastern part of Washington D.C. Black and gray smoke and dust filled the air overhead and around them, debris and civilian bodies scattered across the reflective pavement. She tried not to stare at them.

_"Emily, can you see any GDI presence where you are?" _She grimaced, trying to make out the buzzing in her headset as she looked into her cameraman's face. Just twenty years ago, camera crews carried handheld video recorders, but Tim, a bulky dark-skinned man in a heavy set of webbing and a blue cap, wore all the gear on him, including a headset with multiple cameras set around the goggles in his eyes, a computer mounted on his chest and recording gear on his back.

"I haven't encountered any real numbers of GDI soldiers since the assault started," she replied, looking down the street. "The GDI troops I did encounter were in full retreat, and that was three hours ago. Nod soldiers are everywhere out here. Right now I can see what looks like a couple of Nod armored vehicles and some troops down the street, heading away from my position, and-"

_THOOM!_

"Ah, _shit_! I think that sound you just heard is some kind of Nod artillery vehicle," Emily said, wincing. "Sorry about the cursing, Ed."

_"That's fine Emily. Just keep telling us what you see."_

She nodded, and peeked around the corner, before waving Tim forward. So much for covering the spaghetti festival they had been planning downtown today. Now she was running through a hell storm with maybe ten other sets of reporters who had been out in the city when the Zone Wall had been destroyed, and was now caught in the chaos of the invasion. She didn't even know if the other field reporters were still alive, but Nod troops had made a point of completely avoiding Emily and Tim as they reported on the invasion.

The shocking roar of another artillery blast sounded ahead, and they reached the edge of an apartment complex. Emily looked around the corner, and spotted one of the hulking Nod cannons set up down the street, surrounded by what looked like a dozen troops.

"Okay, I found the artillery emplacement," she called over her headset. "Tim, can you get a shot of that thing?"

"Sure," he replied, leaning around the corner. Tim was a good man, who'd apparently served in the GDI Army for a few years as a radio operator a decade ago. It took a lot to perturb him; his nonplussed reaction to the corpses they'd encountered had done a lot to calm Emily's own nerves.

The other thing that helped calm her down was the handgun Tim wore inside his vest. W3N cameramen were certified in self-defense and had the duty of protecting their reporters.

"You see it, Ed?" Emily asked, and he came back in her ears.

_"Yes, Emily, we see it."_

"I don't have any idea what its firing at, but-"

_THOOM!_

"-y ears! Jesus!" Emily heard a wild ringing in her head, and it took a second for her hearing to come back. As it returned, she heard something else over the background havoc of war: gunfire.

"Wait, Ed, can you see this?" she said, peering back at the artillery emplacement, where the soldiers surrounding it were firing at something she couldn't see. The armored buggy beside the artillery was burning, apparently hit by something when the cannon had been firing.

As she watched, narrating the battle as best she could, which meant repeating what was obviously being recorded, the Nod soldiers were quickly cut down or fled back behind the artillery cannon, and what looked like armored GDI troops appeared in the street, firing and advancing. The GDI troops split up, flanking and pinning down the Nod soldiers, quickly surrounding the artillery gun. A three-man group, led by a large man not clad in armor like the rest, ran up on top of the artillery and began firing into the open hatches before the crew had dogged them shut.

A minute later, the gun battle was over, and the GDI troops were quickly hauling what looked like artillery shells out of the silenced gun.

"Come on, Tim," Emily said rising and moving up the street toward the GDI troops, who spotted her almost instantly. Two men pointed guns at her and walked toward her, keeping them trained on her and Tim even when they saw they were unarmed.

"Relax," she called holding her hands up. "Emily Wong, W3N!"

"Colonel, press team," reported one of the two soldiers as they got closer. After a couple of seconds, the man looked up and waved for her and Tim to go toward the artillery gun.

"Colonel says you need to turn off your transmitter _now_," he said, his words firm but direct, and backed up by his imposing-looking gun. Emily turned to Tim, who was already hitting buttons on his wrist controls.

"Sorry, Ed, gotta turn off for now," she apologized over her headset, and then pulled it off. Tim nodded as he finished, and the troops waved them ahead. By now the GDI soldiers had grabbed what looked like two dozen artillery shells from the gun, and one of the men was wiring two of the shells together.

"What the hell are you two doing?" demanded the man atop the artillery gun, and Emily's eyes widened as she recognized the voice of the speaker.

"Nick?" she said, recognizing W3N's favored conservative speaker, who loomed above her with a submachinegun in his hands and wearing a stolen set of combat webbing holding a dozen different pouches of ammunition. A bulky Nod missile launcher was on his back.

"_You're_ the Colonel?" she asked, remembering his old military rank before he'd been retired.

"Yeah," Nick Parker replied. "These kids insist on calling me that. That damn thing transmitting?"

"No sir," replied Tim, shaking his head. Though he'd been on alert since the first explosions, right now he was showing his military bearing even more clearly than usual.

"Why did you have us-" Emily started.

"Nod's going to have some jerks watching the news feeds," Parker said, reached down as the soldier wiring the shells held them up. "Free military intelligence from W3N reporters in the field."

"Oh, God," Emily said, realizing what that meant. "Nod probably knows you're-"

"Yep," Parker said, hitting a switch the trooper had fixed to the top of the shells. "Fifteen second fuse! Get moving!"

Immediately the GDI soldiers broke their perimeter and started running toward the alleys they had emerged from. Tim and Emily followed suit, while Parker casually tossed the shells into the crew hatch of the artillery gun before hopping off the armor. He ran after them into the alley, and the war machine blew apart as the shells detonated, hurling plating and setting off secondary blasts as the ammunition cooked off.

"What the hell are you doing out here, Nick?" Emily asked after her hearing came back. The GDI group, about a dozen men total when not including the press team, was hurrying up some back alleys in another direction. Every man carried a couple of artillery shells snatched from the gun.

"Fighting the good fight, Emily," Nick replied with a grin. Somewhere in the distance, they could hear more explosions, and the roar of a blasting Nod energy cannon.

"What's that?" she asked, to which Nick's grin expanded.

"There's a Nod Avatar a couple kilometers that way, providing support fire," he explained. He patted a couple of shells fixed to his webbing. "And we're going to kill it. Stick around, have Tim here shoot us in action."

Emily's eyes widened. The chance to get combat footage from the front lines like this . . . she wasn't an embedded reporter, and never thought she'd get a chance to shoot footage or make reports from combat with troops in the field. Most battle footage was at long range, showing troops shooting at targets out of sight, but what Parker was promising . . . .

"You bet I'm going to get a story off of this, Nick," she said, and he chuckled as they ran down the alley.

* * *

There were things that sent a primal fear through human beings. Deep rumbling sounds, the image of claws or stingers, fire, the slight but disturbing distortion of human features some dubbed the "uncanny valley." These were natural fears, fundamental parts of human instinct created to protect humans from natural threats.

In the GDI armed forces, there was a similar primal fear, forged from a mixture of battlefield reports, mess hall stories, rumors, and propaganda. Every infantryman had developed it during training or deployment, in one way or another, a fundamental and near-universal boogieman terror that manifested at that moment in Corporal Mitchell Colt's heart.

The Black Hand of Nod.

"Target the Black Hand," he ordered over his radio. "Target the Black Hand!" There was a moment's gasp of paralyzed fear from the rest of his squad as they were registering the threat ahead of them.

"Target everyone!" Colt shouted desperately, and pulled his rifle's trigger. _"Somebody FIRE!"_

That last command managed to jolt the squad, and Wells cut loose with his GDM-12. He loosed a long, wild three-second burst, and at the end of it the rest of the squad was firing down the street. Colt had no idea if they hit any of the Black Hand, as his rifle ran out of ammunition within a few moments, and he had to scrabble a fresh magazine from one of the pouches on his torso armor.

The militia troops started moving ahead once more. The Nod soldiers had sensed the burst of fear in the GDI troops, or maybe they had been bolstered by the presence of the Black Hand, who were striding forward from one piece of cover to the next, but standing tall all the same - as if inviting the GDI troops to dare shoot them. The mere _presence_ of the Black Hand soldiers was shaking the defenders' morale badly, and throwing off their aim just as effectively. The stress of battle and the near-instinctual fear of the Black Hand was hitting them hard, and Colt realized that he needed to get his squad back under his command before they broke completely.

Then a ruby-red beam intersected with Gillard's head, and his helmet exploded. Bits of ceramic and metal pinged off Colt's armor, steam rising from the decapitated stump that was the marksman's neck, and his body slumped behind the concrete wall. Bursts of flash-boiled concrete erupted into the air as more laser beams cut into the wall Colt was crouched behind.

"Lasers!" shouted Wells, near panic in his voice. "They're firing-"

"Shut the fuck up and keep shooting!" Colt snarled over the radio, and moved down a dozen feet. He leaned up, searching for a target through his rifle's scope. "They're only human! Keep firing!"

"Aye, Corporal!" Wells managed after a couple of seconds. Colt peered down the street and caught one of the Black Hand as he stepped out of cover, raising a laser rifle to his shoulder. Colt squeezed off a burst as his sights settled over the Nod shock trooper's helmet. The GD4 kicked in his hands, and the rounds went downrange.

And did nothing.

Just like their Avatars, the Black Hand came outfitted with the latest in Nod composite armor technology, created in processing furnaces using liquid Tiberium-fueled plasma and reinforced with carbon nanotubes. The armor shrugged off Colt's bullets like they were insects.

"Oh, _balls_," he breathed, firing another burst that managed to scuff the black paint and rip a hole in the Hand's cape. He keyed his radio.

"Command, we have Black Hand units advancing on our position!" He fired another burst, this time at a Nod soldier carrying a light machinegun, and the man belly-flopped to the reflective pavement. One of the Hands stepped out of cover, holding what looked like a flamethrower in one hand, and grabbed the fallen machinegun. He turned and tossed it to another Nod militant.

"Wells, Hand in the open, take him!" Colt ordered, firing on the Hand. His rifle clattered and ran empty, and Colt ducked back behind cover. The wall of the building behind him was then dotted with several explosions as laser beams cut toward where he'd been taking cover. Colt dragged a fresh magazine out and duck-walked down the wall to where Gillard's beheaded body fell. Out in the street, he heard the rumble of Wells' machinegun opening up, and the sporadic fire from Falks and Jordan's GD4s.

"No effect," Wells cried over the radio. His machinegun stopped firing, and he screamed a desperate curse. "Goddamn empty!"

Colt slid the fresh magazine into his rifle and grabbed Gillard's weapon. The optics array atop his GD4 was detachable, and Colt quickly removed it before sliding it onto his own weapon's optics rail. He rose and sighted down his rifle at the enemy, his HUD updating as the scope synced with his armor.

Colt managed to get a good, clear view of one of the Hands with a laser rifle calmly stepping out of cover, raising his weapon, and firing.

Much closer, Wells had placed the belt of his GDM-12's new box magazine into the weapon. He closed the machinegun and was cranking back the charging handle when his torso turned into steam. The machinegunner toppled backward, dead before he knew he'd been hit.

_"Charlie, confirm Black Hand," _Sergeant Havers called over the radio.

"Black Hand confirmed," Colt roared, firing his rifle at the Hand that killed Wells. "I have two men down! Squad is at half-strength, request reinforcements!"

_"Copy, Charlie, we're trying to get close. We have heavy contact here as well." _Havers paused. _"Recommend withdrawal!"_

Rounds impacted the hand's armor, skipping off the metal plating, and the figure turned the gleaming red optics of his helmet toward Colt. A chill ran down his spine, as if the Hand was looking past his helmet and through flesh and bone, and then Colt squeezed the rifle's trigger.

The red optical cluster on the Hand's helmet shattered, and the shock trooper recoiled. Colt's heart skipped a beat, and he fired another shot as the man stumbled backward. That round deflected off the soldier's armor, and the Hand straightened, the optics array dark and dead. His sight compromised and bullets hitting him, the Hand fell back behind cover.

Well, that was better than nothing. More importantly, the rest of the Hands had slowed down and were taking cover as well, apparently now conscious of the danger of incoming fire. And with the Hands slowing, the regular Nod infantry seemed to be hesitating as well.

"Falks, Jordan, fall back!" Colt hissed, breaking cover to run around the wall and grab Wells' machinegun. He stepped over the steaming body, the torso armor blackened and cratered where the beam had blasted through, and hefted the dead trooper's GDM-12. He braced the weapon on the side of the car and fired two long bursts of covering fire while the remaining pair of soldiers broke off and retreated.

"Where to?" Jordan was calling as he moved to safety. Colt momentarily considered one of the buildings, but then remembered the Nod troops carrying flamethrowers. Bad idea.

"Fall back down the street," he ordered, firing the machinegun to keep the enemy suppressed. He wasn't doing too great a job; Nod troops were advancing wherever he wasn't firing, and the street was too wide to cover everywhere. He reopened his radio channel to Alpha.

"Alpha, Charlie is withdrawing," he reported, and gave them their current location.

_"Understood, Charlie," _Havers replied. _"Prepare to-"_

Whatever he said next was drowned out when a searing beam struck the GDM-12 Colt was carrying, melting the barrel instantly and cooking off the entire box magazine. Colt fell back off his feet as rounded exploded out of the box and belt, flying everywhere.

"Shit!" he hissed, and scrambled back away from the truck as more laser beams slashed into it, the Black Hand regaining their aggression and pressing up the street. Colt grabbed his GD4 off the pavement and hurried back up the street, even as Nod soldiers poured around the corner with weapons blazing.

* * *

The pavement was bathed in ruby light as photons deflected off the omnipresent dust choking the air. Emily imagined it was like running on top of a long strip of bloodstained plate glass, though in some places the bloodstains were all too real. She averted her eyes from the bodies lying in the streets; a young teenage couple crushed under an overturned car., a series of fire-blackened corpses near a section of horrifically scorched pavement, a dead dog crumpled in yard with two legs missing, and an unidentifiable body that was far, far too small to be an adult.

This was war, Emily realized, a sickening feeling rolling up her body. She'd only seen reports of the devastation from the First Tiberium War, and was just a child living in Hokkaido during the Second Tiberium War, and had been spared the worst fighting. This was the first time she'd been in a real warzone before. The senseless nature of the slaughter, the unthinking violence, all of it numbed Emily even as it revolted her.

The reporter and Tim kept close behind the GDI insurgent team, with Havoc in the lead. They moved up the street in a scattered, loose formation, hugging cover. None of them seemed overly concerned with the news team, only glancing back from time to time. Emily got the impression they considered their tag-a-longs to be little more than unnecessary luggage.

At least Tim was keeping his cameras trained on the troops when he could get a clear angle. Emily wished she'd had one of those camera drones that the big-name reporters used. Heck, Havoc could have used those for scouting, and Emily would have actually been useful instead of just being a civilian chasing them around.

Still, he seemed to know where he was going, though precisely where he was headed reminded Emily of all the stories he told her of his service in the last two wars. She'd dismissed most of them, as he'd always told her that the "details are classified" and he "couldn't name specifics" or "the records on that mission are sealed." In her experience, anyone who told stories with those attached to them was full of shit.

The fact that he was leading a twelve-man unit on a charge against a twenty-meter tall walking slab of metal spewing laser beams from its arms made her reconsider his stories.

It took them close to an hour of careful movement through back alleys and unoccupied roads to reach their destination. Twice Parker called for a halt, and once he pulled a few of his men to move out ahead and eliminate Nod troops in their path. When she asked why they were encountering so few troops, Havoc shrugged.

"From what it looks like, they're throwing everything in their main assault force against our defenses," he said. "They're keeping the support elements, like the artillery, supply, and air support units back. We're in a narrow strip of ground between the two."

"So, we go too far in either direction and we walk into a Nod army," Emily added, and he grinned.

"I kind of hope we do," he said, and the reporter honestly wondered if Parker was being serious or just kidding.

The Avatar they were hunting had taken up a position at the near end of a wide park, where the trees were scorched and burning. Past the smoke and flames, Emily spotted what looked like a battle raging between GDI and Nod armor and infantry within the park itself and the streets beyond. The Avatar was using its height and powerful long-range laser cannons to blast GDI defenders and cover the Nod tanks and troops. Its position and size gave it a commanding view of the open area, and its armor allowed it to shrug off the occasional shell that exploded against its plating.

The Avatar itself was in no real danger. Even this close to the front, it was safe from anything short of a massed armor charge that breached the Nod lines, which at that point were rolling over the beleaguered GDI defenders. Even then, as Emily watched its cannon blast away with eye-hurtingly bright ribbons of crimson energy, she would have guessed one of these legged monsters could fight off a dozen Predator tanks.

As such, the walker had only a token defense force to protect it. A perimeter of a dozen Nod light infantry with the mismatched militia fatigues and odd assortment of personalized gear and weapons had formed a loose perimeter, with most of the troops sitting or lounging around. Half of them didn't even have their weapons in hand, and only a few were watching their surroundings. Two light buggies also sat nearby, one with its gun traversing the area, the other unmanned; its driver and gunner were sitting on a crate of ammunition and smoking cigarettes. A large truck, doubtless what the paltry security troops had arrived in, was parked nearby, a single man standing in the bed and serving as lookout.

"Sloppy," Havoc muttered, shaking his head. The Avatar fired again. The Nod troops were lightly-trained militia, after all. Devoted to the cause, certainly, but still a bit lax on discipline. Then again, they had an Avatar looming overhead and an army dealing with the only threats in the area. They doubtless thought they could relax a bit.

Havoc liked it when they relaxed. He liked it a _lot_.

It took five minutes for the little insurgent team to set up. Parker said he had a knack for off-the-cuff plans, and this was no different. Emily asked the former commando what his plan was, to which he shrugged and patted the rocket launcher he carried.

"Bang boom," he replied with a smile.

Havoc's plan involved significantly more boom than that, as well as copious amounts of bang. Two teams of four men split off down side alleys and took up firing positions on either end of the lax Nod perimeter. The remaining group, four more troops and Havoc himself, moved forward, close to the undisciplined Nod troops. Emily crouched beside Tim, watching a safe distance away, her breath tight in her throat.

The signal to attack came with the roar of Parker's missile launcher firing, a plume of smoke tracing a line from him to the watchful Nod buggy. Even as the vehicle's armor buckled inward, flames and shrapnel blasting from its interior, Havoc had already pulled the second rocket off the launcher's lug and fitted it, spinning toward the second buggy. That one took the screaming missile dead in the center of its front windshield, the front half blasted apart. Shrapnel the size of a man's arm lashed out, slicing the vehicle's smoking crew to bloody tatters before they'd had time to do more than look up.

The infantry perimeter caught fire from two directions at once. Of the dozen or so Nod troops Emily could see, half were killed in seconds, most of them the ones that were armed. The rest dove for cover, pulling sidearms or grabbing their rifles. Then, Emily finally got all the affirmation she needed that Nick Parker's insane stories of his commando exploits were true.

Havoc and the four GDI troopers he kept with him leapt from behind the cars and building corners they were using for cover and charged. They didn't yell or rush out guns blazing, but they rose from cover as one, rifles in hand, and bounded out into the street, straight for the Avatar.

Emily almost shot to her feet so she could get a better view, but Tim grabbed her and pulled her back down; he knew what happened to people who poked their heads up without warning in a firefight.

The Nod soldiers were crouching behind cover, mostly cars, crates, and their truck, returning fire as best they could, but were suppressed by massed volleys of incoming shots from two directions. They were wholly unprepared when the armored GDI troops led by Havoc rushed around one side of their positions and fell upon them from the side. Rifles blazed as bursts of close range automatic fire erupted. Emily heard cries of agony and saw blood spraying over the visors of the GDI troops, who fired from the hip into their enemies. One armored soldier fell back, raising his rifle as a Nod trooper leapt at him, screaming in panicked frenzy. Their weapons collided, and she saw the GDI trooper snap his rifle butt across into the Nod soldier's face, cracking his jaw and sending him tot he pavement, followed by a boot to the back. Even over the chaotic gunfire and thunder of distant battle, Emily swore she heard the enemy trooper's backbone break as the heavy boot drove into his body.

Havoc didn't even stop to engage the enemy. He leapt over a crate, firing his submachinegun one-handed into a Nod soldier who was rising up, and ran past the falling corpse. In his other hand Havoc carried a bundle of the artillery shells they'd stolen from the Nod gun miles away. He bolted straight for the Avatar, looming up above like a brooding god.

It hadn't even seemed to notice the chaos at its feet; the war machine instead continued to casually loose incandescent beams of blinding red destruction into the distance. The ants at its toes were of no concern, even when one of those ants reached its side and leapt up, grabbing a seam in its armor plating.

Havoc slung his submachinegun and pulled with one aged but muscular arm, hauling himself up two meters. He planted his feet against the walker's leg and raised the bag of artillery shells. One side of it he'd sprayed with one of the standard-issue adhesive coating bottles GDI troopers carried for planting mines and bombs just like this one, and he slapped it against the armor. As soon as he'd done so, Havoc dropped back to the ground, and sprinted toward the troops, who had finished off the last Nod guards.

_"Danger-close!"_ he screamed, his augmented legs carrying him a lot faster than Emily imagined they hsould have for a man his age. That was the last she saw at that point, for Tim grabbed her and pulled her back behind cover.

"What does 'danger-close' mean?" she asked, and he gritted his teeth. She heard the GDI soldiers running back behind cover nearby, and then the world became noise and shocking tremors. She covered her ears, the roar of the explosion so powerful she only caught a brief bit of it before all sound became replaced by a painful ringing. A couple of seconds later, another tremor shot through the ground.

She rose shakily, and saw the godlike walker lying facedown, its arms scrabbling against the pavement and dirt as it tried to stand, the leg Parker had bombed blown to a smoking stump. Havoc was running back toward it, a second bag of artillery shells in hand. The ringing was starting to subside, and as she watched, he ran around toward the walker's front, right next to its front, slapping the bag of explosives onto its hull. He seemed to wait for it to push itself high enough up that the sensor arrays on the front of the black war machine could see him, and grinned.

He raised a one-finger salute, and even with her ears still ringing, Emily heard what he said next clear as day.

"I got a present for ya!"

Then he broke and ran. The Avatar tried to turn and raise its weapon, but with its leg disabled, it couldn't move far enough around to fire before Havoc dove behind the Nod truck.

The front end of the Avatar caved in as the shells went off, shattering its front and obliterating the crew inside. The metallic monster was lifted up a few meters before crashing back down to the pavement, its arms pointing out at odd angle. Fire burned inside its crew compartment, issuing black smoke into the sky.

"Let's get moving!" Havoc yelled as he jogged back to the group. "I get the feeling the local Noddies are going to have their thongs in a knot over this one!"

"Tim," Emily said, looking to her cameraman as they rose and hurried back the way they'd come. "Tell me you _got_ that."

"I did," he assured her. "You bet your ass I did."

* * *

**_Brotherhood Data Archives - Intelligence Report - Global Defense Initiative Powered Armor Research Report: "Zone" Class Armor Units_**

_Abstract: The Global Defense Initiative's predecessors started powered armor development some time in the past, initially basing technological development of mobile power sources on the "shock trooper" units developed by Stalin's Soviet army in World War II, utilizing the Tesla Coil technology they deployed to great effect against the Allies. Difficulties in miniaturizing these power sources limited development until the miracle of Tiberium fell upon us in 1995. With the divine crystal in their hands, GDI's science researchers, particularly Doctor Mobeius, developed crude but effective powered armor._

_Continued development of powered armor technology branched out into several directions, with GDI constructing the ungainly but grievously effective "Wolverine" units and the airborne "Jump-jet" armor suits, which allowed for unexpectedly quick raids on our forces, who were primarily accustomed to GDI's powerful but ponderous heavy armor strikes. By this point, GDI had further refined their armor and have combined a number of their more destructive technologies into "Zone" armors._

_The Zone armor units are divided into several classes, the two most common of which are the Zone Troopers and the Zone Raiders. All Zone armor comes equipped with full NBC protection and integrated and advanced computer systems that calculate firing vectors and process targeting and terrain data at high speeds, and are equipped with jump-jet technology that makes them extremely mobile. "Trooper" armor units also feature larger backpack power plants and anti-armor railguns, and are used for high mobility precision anti-armor work. "Raider" units, on the other hand, are equipped with rapid-fire sonic grenade launchers and light anti-air missile launchers. Both types are used in conjunction with infantry and armor elements for support duties, and rarely operate alone due to their specialized nature._

_Both breeds of "Zone" armors are extremely dangerous, but have a high cost associated with their miniaturized power plants and high-end weaponry. Also, they require specialized training. We project that this will result in limited deployment for most conventional GDI units, though heavy assault forces, reconassiance elements, and units that will operate in high-Tiberium areas may have a higher ratio of Zone armor to regular troopers . . . ._

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**You may have noticed the addition of a quote at the top of the chapter. This chapter isn't terribly unique in that regard; I've gone back and done some editing to previous chapters here and there.

The next chapter is going to be primarily from the GDI perspective again, covering the rest of the assault on the airfield, the rescue of the downed pilot, Colt's (and Third Platoon's) battle against the Black Hand, and some good old fashioned "Ooh-rah!" from the GDIMC. Also, expect to see more from Karrde and General Granger. This chapter was also originally slated to include naval combat between Conway's battlegroup and the Nod fleet. Unfortunately, I discovered I suck at writing naval battles, and rather than subject you guys to subpar writing, the naval battles are likely going to get scrapped.

There's going to be a sort of shift in focus in regards to my writing in this story, as I'm going to be exploring more than just the straightforward action of the games. There's still going to be plenty of violence and combat, but I'm also interested in exploring some of the more humanitarian aspects of the war and the Tiberium universe as a whole, as well as developing the soldiers themselves. This story kind of started out as a reaction to DeCandido's shitfest of a novelization, but its growing on me into something more.

Incidentally, I was annoyed at how the reporters in the novelization had access to those little marble camera drones, but GDI troops never used them for recon - or any UAVs in general. Those damn camera drones would have been ridiculously useful in a couple of the scenarios in the novel, like the assault on the convention center.

And in the last chapter, I noticed someone finally made a connection that I've beenw anting to elaborate on. One of my primary influences in writing this story is Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40K books, particularly his _Gaunt's Ghosts_ series. _Necropolis _and _Honour Guard_ have, in particular, been a big influence on this story. I've made a few references to 40K thus far - obviously, the use of "Brother-Sergeant" and such for Nod, which is a throwback to the Space Marines, and the "armored fist" platoons. Another big influence for me (particularly for this chapter) is Evan Wright's nonfiction book _Generation Kill_, which gives a rather fascinating and extremely human look into the operations of the modern military from the sharp end of the stick, and the kind of chaotic, brutal and senseless struggle a modern war really feels like.

To answer another important question, I will be making references to Kane's Wrath, and will probably be using most of the units, e.g. Spectres in this chapter, Hammerheads next chapter, along with probably Zone Raiders, Slingshots, and Shatter tanks later on (I refuse to call them "Shatterers." Seriously, try to say that and not make it sound stupid.) However, just as TW's storyline can exist without Kane's Wrath, so too will this story primarily be about Tiberium Wars, not the secondary battles taking place in the background. I'll be using elements of it, at least.

Until next chapter . . . .


	10. Chapter IX: Devil Dogs

_**Chapter Nine: Devil Dogs**_

_"Get some!"_

_-Common "moto" call, United States Marine Corps_

Private First Class Cale Winters keeled over and vomited a mess of preprocessed MRE all over the corpse of a Nod soldier.

He hadn't planned to, but the man had previously had a head, and while he'd had that head, he'd been raising a pistol, as his rifle had been lost when Cale blew his arm off and shredded half his body with a grenade. The grenadier had reacted swiftly when he saw the pistol: he'd raised his leg and stomped his eight-pound armor-plated combat boot right into the man's face, with all the shocked, panic-fueled strength he could muster. The blow succeeded in reducing his foe's face to a messy pulp.

Looking at that pulp for more than a few seconds triggered a combination of revulsion and nausea in the relatively green trooper, and he'd had to fumble for his helmet's rebreather catch before he puked all over his air filter.

The dead Nod trooper, and a few of his buddies, had been hiding inside a small one-story office building of flimsy sheet metal, positioned by one of the hangars. Second Platoon had been clearing the area when they took fire from it, and had assaulted the building after a couple of shots from Cale's launcher. As they moved into the building and cleared it, stepping gingerly over the broken wood and twisted metal that was left by the grenades, one of the not-quite-dead enemy soldiers had moved.

Now his corpse was covered in vomit, and Cale was coughing, shaking his head as he looked at the mess of flesh, puke, and debris spread out before him.

"You gonna live, blooper?" came a call, and Cale looked up. He found himself face-to-face with one of the Corporals from Alpha Squad, Second Platoon. Cale nodded, straightening.

"First . . . close combat," he said steadying himself, and the rifleman nodded in reply.

"It gets easier," he said after a few seconds, and moved off.

Cale followed, sidearm drawn; though the grenade launcher's shells were only primed to detonate once they'd flown a certain distance, the weapon was awkward and slow to fire in close-quarters battle. He figured he could shatter a ribcage with the force behind the shells, but the pistol was still a better option.

The office was clear of other hostiles, save a few more wounded enemy troopers. The platoon had neither the manpower to handle nor the inclination to take prisoners at that moment, and the wounded Nod soldiers quickly ceased to care about their injuries.

Cale watched the businesslike executions emotionlessly. This was war, and he found himself quickly being desensitized to it. As he helped clear the building, Cale figured if the civilians ever got wind of this, they'd have a fit. Most of them didn't have the stomach for the blunt, brutal logic of what he was seeing now.

Once Second Platoon had cleared the office complex, Lieutenant Michels received orders to scatter his troops out and entrench their area. Cale soon found a good firing position behind a burned-out SUV parked behind the building, the slagged remains lying atop the scorched body of an airman. The grenadier grabbed the man's dog tags and pocketed them, not having time to read them.

As Cale settled into place, he listened over the radio, and then understood why those orders had been given.

Nod had finally reacted to the recapture of the airfield at Langley. Enemy reinforcements were en route.

* * *

Corporal Mitchell Colt was never more terrified in his life.

Laser beams scythed past the trio of GDI soldiers, blasting holes in vehicles and other debris. Colt couldn't see the Black Hands as they pursued them down the street, but could hear their beams sear past, see them slashing through the dust, and watched them boil pieces of metal away. He remembered what those same beams had done to Wells' and Gillard's bodies, and he imagined any instant that he'd feel that impossible heat boiling his insides away-

Colt slid down behind cover, raising his GD2 and sighting down the scope. He picked up a Black Hand in his sights as Falks rose and began to retreat as well. Colt fired his rifle, heart hammering in his chest as he tried to down the Black Hands charging in pursuit. He might as well have been firing blanks for all the effect he was doing to their heavy battle armor.

Then, beyond them, he saw more shapes - other figures in black armor, moving up with the mish-mashed forms of Nod militia. Over the roar of his rifle and the searing fire of the lasers, he could hear chanting, a rhythmic prayer coming from the Nod soldiers, and the black armored figures strode ahead, firing heavy rifles and laser weapons that sprayed blue lances of light toward the GDI fireteam.

"Oh, Jesus," he heard Jordan whisper. "Goddamn fucking fanatics!" the trooper was on the verge of panic, and firing his rifle wildly.

"Calm the fuck down, Jordan!" Colt shouted as Falks reached cover and resumed fire. "Fall back!" Shots from Falks' GD2 erupted down the street, cutting down one of the militia troopers as he bounded from cover. The Nod soldiers didn't seem to care, flooding up the street behind the caped, chanting priests.

Confessors, Colt thought grimly. He'd never seen so many of them, and so heavily armed, in one place before . . . .

"Jordan, fall back to cover!" Colt yelled again, seeing the trooper hadn't moved. "Move it, soldier!"

Jordan jolted to his feet, spinning around and sprinting down the street. Blue and red lasers chased him, sending clouds of vaporized metal and ceramic into the air as they boiled and hissed all around the trooper. Colt shakily reached down to his vest, grabbed a 40mm grenade from his pouch, and loaded it as the Nod troopers continued to advance. He shouldered the rifle, sighting one of the Black Hand, and fired.

The grenade _thoomphed_ out of the launcher, arced through the air, and impacted beside one of the Hands. The explosion engulfed him, picking the Nod soldier up and tossing him aside, shrapnel mangling his armor. The Hand managed to sit up, and started to try to stand, when his leg collapsed and he fell back to the reflective pavement. Colt shifted back to his rifle's regular ammunition, sighted down the scope, and fired a burst into the Hand's helmet, shattering his optics and blinding him.

"I'm in cover," Jordan said, shakily. "Move, Colt!" As he spoke, Jordan fired again, hitting one of the confessors as he stepped out of cover. The battle priest wasn't as heavily armored as the Hand, and dropped after two quick bursts.

Colt spun and rose, dashing for more cover as the rest of the Hands continued leading the pursuit, a column of confessor-led militia behind them. Dozens of men - no, _hundreds_ of them. He started to run, and then saw movement behind the two other soldiers in his squad, and for a single heart-stopping moment Colt thought that they'd been flanked and surrounded by more Nod troops. He thought he had confirmation when the figures raised their rifles and opened fire-

-straight into the Nod soldiers behind them.

"Charlie, do not fire!" came the familiar voice of Sergeant Hunnigan. "Alpha and Delta, at your six!"

"You took your fucking _time_!" Colt shouted as he dove behind cover behind Falks, who shot up for his run.

"Get the hell back here and dig in," Alpha Squad's Sergeant yell as the two rifle squads opened fire and covered their retreat. "The rest of the platoon is on its way!"

"Where's Simo?" Colt asked as he sighted another confessor and fired. His rounds skipped off the man's helmet, but only seemed to make the warrior priest angrier. Jordan's next shot calmed him, puncturing his throat.

"Prepping a shot, Corporal," came a reply over the radio, from the platoon sniper.

* * *

Sergeant Joshua "Simo" Havers ran up the stairs, his boots pounding the metal as he chased his spotter, who was a half-dozen steps above him, GD2 carbine raised as he swept the stairwell. They continued charging up the steps, Havers holding his GDS-4 submachinegun in hand, his GLS-70 sniper rifle slung on his back.

They reached the top of the stairs, and the spotter, Corporal Terrence Brooks, shoved the door open. They stepped out onto the rooftop of the apartment building, sweeping the area, and confirmed no threats. Havers checked his goggles' compass and hurried east after reorienting himself. They ran to the edge of the rooftop, where a low ceramic lip rose up to waist height to keep people from falling over, and both sniper and spotter dropped into kneeling positions, Havers setting down his lighter weapon and drawing his sniper rifle.

As he set up the rifle's bipod, Brooks scanned the area with his GD2's mounted optics array.

"Movement below," he called. "Eyes on friendlies, eighty meters ahead."

"I see them," Havers said, peering through his rifle's scope. A dozen and more men in GDI uniforms were scattered among a series of abandoned cars and other urban detritus, trading fire with advancing enemy soldiers. Flashes of gunfire and the red and blue beams of lasers filled the air between them, the energy weapons scoring vicious rents in the GDI troops' cover. Havers traced his line of sight upwards, as his spotter located the advancing Nod soldiers.

"Black Hand units, one hundred and seventy meters east," Brooks reported. Havers brought his scope up, following the lines of red laser beams, and spotted the heavily-armored Nod infantrymen as they strode up the street, gunfire deflecting off their shaped, heavy armor, their capes billowing behind them. He counted at least four of them, two firing laser rifles while two more carried flamethrowers.

"Hit the flamers," Brooks said, echoing Havers' own assessment. He lowered the crosshairs of his rifle over the lead Hand, who was running from behind a truck and closing to within a hundred meters of the GDI troops' positions. Once he was close enough, Havers knew, he would use the high-pressure projector of his flamethrower to cook the GDI soldiers where they stood, the fires flowing around cover like a rushing stream of water.

Havers had picked up the nickname "Simo" from one of the guys in A Company, who said he was "the next Simo Hayha." Of course, they'd been roaring drunk at the time, otherwise none of them would have been insane enough to compare Havers to the greatest sniper in history. Stalin's armies in the Winter War had learned to fear the silence when that little Finnish farmer went to work, and when Stalin had tried to take over Europe in the 1950's, they'd found even more terror when Hayha had gone to work for the Allies.

The name stuck, and Sergeant "Simo" ended the advancing Hand's ambitions with a simple squeeze of his GLS-70's trigger. There was a crack as the light railgun's supersonic discarding sabot round lanced out, blowing a hole clean through the Black Hand's composite, high-grade armor. The caped, armored figure simply stopped moving, slumping to the ground like a black and red statue that had been knocked over.

Before the Hand had even hit the ground, the others had stopped and ducked behind cover; the other flame trooper disappeared into a doorway before Havers could even find him in his scope. They'd reacted faster than he'd expected to the presence of a sniper. Well-trained.

"Dammit, got no target," Havers hissed, adjusting his scope to have a wider view of the street. "Where are those other lasers coming from?"

"Looks like some wannabe Black Hands," Brooks replied. Havers spotted what looked like a couple of dozen other Nod soldiers further back, wearing black armor and with tall helmets and capes. Confessors, carrying laser weapons. No wonder the Nod soldiers were pushing this advance so hard - if they had battle priests urging them on, they'd fight against any odds, let alone hunt down a single stray GDI platoon.

Havers shifted his aim, zooming back in. he picked out one of the Nod battle-priests, crouching behind a car and making a gesture toward the light militia behind him, and fired.

"Good kill," Brooks reported. "Took his head clean off. Look twelve meters west. One of those Hands is-"

"Got him." Havers spotted one of Hands, his shoulder barely visible around the car he was covered behind. Havers lined up the target and fired, blowing the man's arm completely off.

"Confessor moving up, twenty meters east, opposite side of the road, with grenades."

"Got him."

"Clean hit through the torso . . . Okay, Nod troopers with rockets, forty meters north of them, behind the dumpster."

"Got them."

" . . . okay, you got him in the chest, his buddy's running - wait, one of the confessors shot him, discipline execution. Saves us ammo. Another confessor seventeen meters east. Blue car."

"Got him."

* * *

The room shook, consoles flickered, and General Jack Granger frowned. The latter did more to frighten his many subordinates than any of the former.

"That sounded like heavy munitions," he said, looking up at the ceiling while the command center of the Pentagon continued boiling with human activity.

Most likely air units, he thought. Nod hadn't gotten artillery in range to directly bombard the Pentagon yet.

Or rather, that was what he figured, because he still couldn't get reliable communications with the troops defending the DC area. He had reliable comms over land lines with Whitehall, the Kokubo Sosho, Sydney, Reykjavik, Hammerfest, Manama . . . but he couldn't talk to the men in his own backyard. And if his own comms were out, that meant the GDI defenders couldn't assemble a coordinated defense of the area, and that was bad news.

"Tell me we at least have comms with the perimeter defense," Granger growled, walking across the CIC.

"Yes sir," reported Lieutenant Andros, a young British man with dark skin and a shaved head. "Local radios are able to cut through the jamming."

"Have you been able to locate the source of the jamming?" Granger asked, standing over Andros as he worked away at his computer.

"No, sir," he replied. "But it has to be local, probably within their support sections. I'm trying to narrow it down based on signal strength. Whatever it is, it has to be big and powerful to be interfering with our comms at this distance."

"Just _find_ it," Granger said, stepping away. "I need to be able to talk to my men and my EVAs if I'm going to sort this out before we're all killed."

"Aye, sir," Andros replied, the tail end of his response lost in the din of the CIC as Granger stalked across the room toward the main viewscreen. Currently, it showed a flattened map of the planet, with hotspots glowing across every single GDI Blue Zone, as well as the majority of their Yellow Zone holdings.

Full-scale Nod invasion across the entire planet. A massed assault against every GDI stronghold in a single enormous coordinated strike . . . it was practically unthinkable only half a day ago, but then they'd had their Ion Cannon array still online and ready to smite Nod if they so much as raised their heads out of their holes. Now, they had nothing but the boots on the ground, the planes in the air, and their ships at sea.

Well, Granger thought, he'd work with what he had.

"EVA," he called, "Do we have any intact landline connections to our bases inside the DC area?"

"Standby," the AI replied, and a moment later it came back. "Attempts to communicate with ninety percent of base EVA units have failed. Assumed cause to be communications failure or capture by Nod forces."

"Neither of those are good," Granger muttered, looking at the viewscreen. He picked up his laser pointer and highlighted the DC area, and zoomed in. "What about the units you _have_ been able to contact? Show them on this screen."

Three bases popped up on the map as bright blue dots, all outside the projected area of Nod advance. A fourth blip appeared on the screen a few seconds later, along the coast.

"Is that Langley?" Granger asked, seeing the name pop up on the screen. "I thought we'd lost that one?"

"Landline connections at Langley Air Force Base have been rerouted," the EVA replied. "Base EVA unit transferred to secondary support facilities. Establishing comms with local Command EVA."

"Whose Command EVA?" Granger asked, surprised. That meant that a Battle Commander had to have moved into the area and assumed command following the comms blackout.

"Battle Commander Alexander Karrde," the EVA replied. "Currently in command of 103rd Reconnaissance Division's Fourth Battalion, and LAFB security and airborne assets."

Well it was _about damn time _he had some good news. If _anyone_ could retake and hold Langley, it was Karrde.

"Once you've got comms with Karrde's EVA, patch Lieutenant James through for liaison," Granger ordered. He looked over the viewscreen, and spotted a series of markers offshore. "Who are those?"

"Sir," called one of the junior officers nearby, a red-haired kid whose name he couldn't remember. "Its a battle group under Naval Commander Conway. There's a MEU about three nautical miles southeast of them, under Brigadier Sanderson. Division-level force strength."

"Get me comms with them," Granger said. "How'd we find them?"

"I think bounced off Langley's local net," the lieutenant replied. "Pinging EVA for destination and objectives . . . Conway's group is tackling a small Nod fleet off Hampton Roads. Sanderson's fleet is heading for the dockside bases near Langley, deploying the MEU to assist in retaking the city and airbase."

"Send confirmation for those orders," Granger said, a bit of relief in his voice. Fifty thousand angry Marines and a GDIN battlegroup, and they were already heading for the most important objectives in-theater. A god-send.

"Is Sanderson commanding those Marines?" Granger asked a few moments later.

"Negative, sir," another officer called. "She's ceding ground operations command to Commander Karrde until Langley has been retaken."

"Okay, EVA, prep and sort these orders," Granger said, stepping across the room. "All air units we have in the area are to converge on Langley for refueling and rearming. Sanderson and Karrde are to retake Langley ASAP, and deploy a regiment to secure the area from further Nod assault. The remaining Marine units are to move north and retake Hampton Roads under naval support from Conway's battlegroup, and then reinforce local defenses and clear the southern parts of DC."

The room shook as another wave of Vertigos strafed the Pentagon. Granger grumbled.

"Orders processing," the EVA replied.

"And someone tell me who the hell is in overall command now that we've lost the Philadelphia!" Granger added.

"We don't know, sir," replied another officer.

"Well, find out!" he shouted.

"General," the EVA chirped again. "Protocol indicates that in the event of Philadelphia's loss of comms, the senior commander of the Southern Cross is now in charge until formal command can be reestablished."

"Well, get me in touch with-"

"Sir," one of the other officer said with a pale expression on his face. He looked up from his monitor. "Southern Cross was just overrun. Its gone."

"Show me," Granger hissed, stepping toward the lieutenant. The kid hit a few keys on his monitor and turned it to face the general. Granger saw billowing clouds of smoke, fires, burning vehicles, and a dozen of those humongous Nod walkers stomping through the shattered walls and broken gun turrets of Southern Cross' perimeter.

"_God_dammit," Granger muttered. "Without Southern Cross, that means . . . " he paused, and let out a deep sigh.

That meant that overall GDI command had shifted to the senior officer of the Pentagon; to General Jack Granger himself.

"God_dammit_," he muttered again. He looked around the room, which shook from yet another strafing run, dozens of officers running back and forth and trying to get a handle on the situation, which had just gotten infinitely more complicated. He couldn't coordinate defense of every Blue Zone while fighting off a Nod assault on his own backyard.

"EVA," he snarled, "Tell Commander Karrde that when he has Langley secured, to get his battalion up here to the Pentagon. I have a more important job for him to do."

* * *

"Give me the news, Sergeant," Karrde said, hurrying back into the CIC. He'd just gone out to check with the engineers, who were trying to lock down a Tiberium fissure Nod had broken north of the base; while not a direct tactical concern, loose Tiberium could infect his troops or their gear if not addressed, and he'd lose a lot of manpower and materiel.

"Spotters have confirmed a large Nod presence north of the airfield," Sergeant Nomad, one of his comms troopers, replied. "Estimate regiment-sized."

"Fits with what Sanderson said we were up against," Karrde muttered. "Get our boys dug in. Have they secured the airfield?"

"Third Platoon, A Company is finishing some business on the southwest end of the field," called PFC Lindley. "Couple of militia fireteams holed up in a tool shed. Other than that, it looks all clear."

Karrde nodded, and quickly interfaced with EVA through his Comcom, checking his troops' status. There was still a lot of communication interference, but he got a rough picture that matched what his people were telling him. More importantly, his sensors, UAV recon, and visual reports from the troops were confirming large amounts of Nod movement in the mixture of trees and light suburban development north of the base, opposite the wide field that bordered that end of the facility.

"We've secured the rearmament pads, right?" Karrde asked, looking over the maps, and Sergeant Nomad nodded. "Okay, EVA, get me Skull Squadron. Where are they?"

A few seconds later, a group of blips that had settled on the parking lots east of the port base appeared on Karrde's Comcom. Detailed statistical data on the Orca's loadouts and fuel status appeared as well.

"Okay, get them airborne and back to the airfields," Karrde ordered. "Major Collins, can you . . . ."

The GDIAF officer nodded, and started talking on his radio, pulling up his technicians and flight crews and ordering them back to the airbase, while also having his base EVA begin bringing the automated systems back online.

Karrde's Comcom flashed an alert, and he checked it. His blood ran cold as he highlighted the alert, which was coming from the two platoons he'd sent to recover the downed Skull pilot.

"Major Koen!" he yelled. His acting XO hurried over, and Karrde showed him the bad news.

"Oh, fuck me sideways," the Major replied, paling. "_Black Hand_?"

Heads swerved toward them immediately, silence cutting across the CIC as officers and enlisted all reacted to that instinctive boogiemen drilled into them all since Boot.

"Yes, elements of Black Hand in the city," Karrde confirmed. He looked up. "Company-sized forces. Get those Skull pilots to the airfield now! We've got two platoons of our people being mauled by those Nod lunatics, they need the air support!"

The CIC exploded back into movement as Karrde got his people back to work.

"EVA, open me a channel to those two platoons now," Karrde ordered. "What units do we have closest to that-"

"Sir!" called Major Collins, hurrying back, a hopeful look on his face.

"What, Major?" Karrde snapped, annoyed and slightly angered by the interruption.

"I don't think we'll need to wait for the Skulls, sir," he said, and pointed toward the viewscreen. Dozens and dozens of new blips were appearing along the coast, marked with swooping eagle wings and talons set against a globe and anchor.

"Shit," Koen said, watching the blips rapidly multiply many times over, swarming over the ocean. "Those are our angels."

"Not angels, Major," Karrde replied, a tight grin on his face. "Those are devils."

Devil dogs, to be precise, marked by the eagle, globe, and anchor of the Global Defense Initiative Marine Corps.

* * *

"Brace for lift!"

As Corporal Jason Myers heard that yell from the crew compartment, resounding in his ears thanks to the earpiece in his helmet, he finished clicking the last of the straps around his shoulders. He settled his head against the headrest of his seat, made one last check to ensure his GDM-12 was secured beside him, and-

_Whoom._

-he was pushed straight down into his seat, his stomach sinking hard.

Meanwhile, outside, the blacktop of the helicopter carrier dropped away, revealing glittering blue ocean and pale blue sky on the horizon, partially blocked by the flickering black and gray of chopping, dual-meshed rotor blades. That persisted for a few seconds, and then the pressure eased as they finished ascending, only to return a few seconds later as they whipped about, Myers being shoved back into his seat as the helicopter accelerated.

"Five minutes to shoreline, devil dogs!" shouted Sergeant Valle, his voice completely inaudible over the roar of the engines and dual rotors. His voice chirped in Myers' ears, and they let out a quick, harsh "Ooh-rah!" in response.

Myers' heart pumped in his ears, the rush of blood and adrenaline almost drowning out the yell of his rifle squad. It had been close to seven hours since Kane's broadcast, and the moment it had hit the MEU had whipped around to deploy at DC, even before they'd gotten word Nod was invading.

_Shit, _he thought, checking his SAW almost reflexively_. Nod invading_. It was still nearly impossible to believe, but they'd all been watching the news reports after getting their gear together. Titanic battle walkers, formations of scarab-like tanks, countless numbers of light infantry, cloaked aircraft, buzzing Venom light VTOLs, thundering artillery, _everything. _Straight out of a TW1 or TW2 war documentary.

And he was flying right into it.

"Three minutes to shoreline!"

Myers looked around the troop cabin. The rest of Bravo Squad, with their attached AT missile team, were sitting in their seats, tense and eager for combat. PFC Shi was rechecking his GD4, Lance Corporal Mattias was drumming his fingers against his ceramic kneepads, and Private Liebshwager was eating a power bar quickly, practically stuffing it into his mouth. He'd been complaining he hadn't had a chance to eat all since the broadcast.

They were wearing a slightly lighter load than the GDI Army soldiers' normal kit; unlike them, the Marines didn't wear closed-face helmets, though their helmets had pull-down rebreathers in case of gas attack that sealed to their helmet's visors. It was a comfort thing; the Marines generally just disliked wearing their rebreathers all the time, and even orders from the brass to deploy with them donned didn't usually work. Their armor was a bit lighter too, again for comfort and mobility; GDI Marine tactics traditionally favored speed and agility for their infantry, compared with Army preferences for head-on engagements.

"One minute to shoreline," came the chirp in Myers' ear, and he looked up. His visor's HUD lit up with a small camera view of the approaching shoreline, and the war became very real, very fast. He saw rising smoke, and the distant fireballs of particularly explosive detonations. He glanced out the troop bay doors, and saw other helicopters flying alongside them, dozens. No, he realized as he tried to count the dots, there looked to be _hundreds_ of them, long, wide-winged attack helicopters with bulbous canopies and thick bellies, filled with Marines. Dual meshed rotors mounted on either side of the helicopters propelled them forward, and attached to the wings were large, spherical pods, from which extended twin four-barreled 20mm rotary guns.

The Hammerhead Assault Helicopters of the 61st Global Defense Initiative Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit's 7th Marine division cut over the shoreline of Langley like a volley of arrows loosed by massed longbowmen.

"Myers, Liebshwager, on the SAWs!" Sergeant Valle shouted, and Myers detached himself from his seat as the Hammerhead flew over some suburbs, passed a highway, and then was over an airfield. He rose, his GDM-12 in hand, and slid it into a fitted hardpoint ring beside the troop bay door. As he moved, he felt PFC Shi reach up, grab a catch hook off the ceiling, and click it over his battle harness to keep Myers steady. Myers spread his feet into a wide, stable stance, his GDM-12 pressed against his shoulder, and peered down the iron sights.

He saw bodies and burning vehicles below. Shattered aircraft, fire-blackened corpses, ruined buildings, and boiling smoke rose from everywhere. A hundred feet below, he saw the armored figures of GDI soldiers moving, with the low, hunched forms of Guardian APCs, Pitbulls, and Predator tanks rumbling north of the airfield. Shapes cut past in the air - the sleek forms of Orca VTOL gunships as they dove toward a cluster of marked pads at one end of the airfield.

Myers looked north, and his heartbeat doubled. Beyond the airfield, emerging from a forested and lightly urbanized area past the mangled perimeter fences of the airbase, he saw lines of scarab-shaped tanks, trucks and boxy treaded transports laden with infantry, and light attack buggies, all rolling toward the GDI troops digging in below.

"Pick your targets Marines!" Valle's order chirped in his ear.

Myers pulled back the charging handle on his GDM-12. He settled his sights over one of the trucks, and then the world began to vibrate, a prolonged rumbling thunderclap shaking him to his bones. White flares blazed into existence on either end of the Hammerhead's wings as the two gunners cut loose with the GAU-73 20mm rotary cannons.

"Fire, fire!" came the shout from Valle, and Myers pulled the GDM-12's trigger. The weapon shook in his hands as he fired a protracted burst, the SAW stabilized by the mount so that his shoots stayed reasonably on target. He didn't know if he hit anything, but the Marine released the trigger, realigned his sights on the truck he'd been aiming at, and fired again. He saw fire and the field beyond the airfield itself erupting with thousands of puffs of flying dirt and rising smoke, the contrails of screaming missiles and lazy arcs of firing grenades descending into the Nod advance line.

"Prepare to drop!" Valle shouted.

"_Ooh-rah!" _the entire collection of Marines shouted, even the pilots.

Dimly, Myers was aware of the rest of his squad rising behind him, feeling more than hearing the clink of their harnesses' hooks attaching to rappelling wires. He saw movement out the corner of his eye as his squadmates began to descend the ropes, and by then his GDM-12's box magazine was running low. He pulled it out of its flex mount and removed the box, grabbing another off his belt. As one of the missile troopers stepped past and slapped him on the shoulder - his signal to get ready to rappel - Myers loaded a second box, set the belt, and pulled the charging handle. The GDM-12 then dropped to his chest, hanging by its strap as he detached himself from the helicopter's ceiling and reattached himself to the drop line.

The process was smooth, simple, automatic, and took only a couple of seconds. Then, Myers was stepping off the side of the helicopter, sliding down the dropline, momentarily feeling the rush of swift weightlessness-

And then his boots were on the ground, and he was dropping into a crouch, raising his GDM-12 to his shoulder and covering a fire sector. They were clear.

"Go, go, _go_!" shouted Valle, signaling the squad to rise, and they did, forming up into two three-man fireteams with a missile trooper to each man, and dashed north, to where they could see fires and explosions amongst the hangars and buildings.

On all sides, Corporal Myers became aware that dozens - if not hundreds - more Marines were running in the same direction, a wave of devil dogs ready to bring a special breed of hell right to Nod's throat.

* * *

Two Nod troopers were moving up behind an abandoned truck in the middle of the street, crouching low as their comrades fired over their heads. They came to a halt at the edge of the cover the parked vehicle provided.

One of the pair suddenly toppled over as a pair of rifle bursts slashed through his boots and knees. He slammed into the pavement, and then a third burst cut through his side, shredding his lungs. The second Nod trooper barely had time to turn and see his dying comrade when another burst hammered his shin, shattering the bones and sending him to one knee. His thigh took a pair of rounds, and the soldier fell forward, smacking his head on the side of the truck. Dazed and disoriented, he managed to pull the trigger on his rifle, firing it wildly in the general direction of the GDI infidels, before another burst brutally rearranged his face.

"Alpha, where's Bravo?" Colt asked as he reloaded his rifle. He lay prone on the glassy pavement, peering between the wheels of another vehicle twenty meters away. He spotted movement - another set of boots visible behind a can another seventy meters downrange, and fired a single shot. He didn't hear the Nod soldier scream over the clatter of gunfire all around him, but Colt did see the man hit the street. He drilled a second shot into the soldier's flank as he lay writhing.

"No radio contact," Sergeant Hunnigan replied. "Staff Sergeant Devos was with them, but they've been quiet."

"That's not good," Colt muttered. He fired another pair of shots beneath the car as he saw more movement, and cursed. This spot didn't give him a good line of fire, and the Nod soldiers were catching on. He rose to his feet, shouldering the GD2, and started hunting for targets above the cars.

A bolt of ruby-red light cut past, and Colt heard a cry of pain over his radio.

"I'm hit!" Jordan shouted, and Colt's HUD updated with his position, tagging him wounded. The corporal dropped back behind cover without firing, located the wounded trooper, and checked back with Falks.

"Falks, cover me!" he ordered. Falks acknowledged, opening fire with his GD2 to draw attention from Colt, and the corporal broke away from cover. He scrambled below the lines of car, rounds ringing off the metal and plastic and shattering glass windows. A laser beam boiled away a patch of concrete in front of Colt, and he spun, firing instinctively.

A looming specter of black armor, gleaming red eyes, and swirling red cape stood only thirty meters away.

Colt's rounds scored off the Black Hand's armor, and the Nod soldier didn't even seem to notice, shifting his rifle to fire another beam. The corporal threw himself back behind another abandoned car, the beam searing past his armor. The heat from the passing shot filled the air, and Colt's next breath through his rebreather was almost painfully hot.

The corporal dragged a grenade out of one of his pouches as the Black Hand walked forward, firing more laser beams into his cover. Metal flared and evaporated as the Nod elite kept up with the suppressive fire, stalking toward the pinned GDI trooper.

Colt popped the pin and depressed the fuse, counted to two, and then tossed the grenade over the top of the car. It flew into the Black Hand's face and exploded, shrapnel ripping into the armor. Colt rose, rifle shouldered-

And saw the Hand was still standing, his armor rent but still intact. For a heart-stopping second, Colt thought he would be burned down where he stood, but then he saw the Hand's optical sensors on his helmet had been shattered by the grenade detonation. The Nod elite was reaching up to remove his helmet so he could see better.

The helmet popped off, revealing tanned features with a shaved head, a willowy green tattoo covering half the man's face - until Colt drilled three rounds into his head, obscuring his face beneath a cloud of expanding red and white material. Almost completely decapitated, the Black Hand toppled onto his back and went still.

Colt stared at the corpse, his heart hammering in his chest. He couldn't believe it. He'd just killed a _Black Hand _in single combat.

It only took a couple of seconds for the soldier to reassert himself, and he bolted toward where Jordan lay. The other Charlie trooper was lying propped against a car, his rifle in his left hand. His right arm was gone at the elbow, the wound messily cauterized by a Nod beam weapon.

"You awake, man?" Colt asked, crouching next to the wounded soldier. He looked over the wound once, and shook his head; he had no idea how to even begin treating that mess, but at least he wasn't bleeding out.

"No," Jordan replied, his voice slightly slurred. He must have taken a dose of wound cleaner; Colt saw the vial and its injector lying next to him.

"Okay, then," Colt said, crouching low and throwing the wounded man's good arm over his shoulder. "Up you go."

He hurried back toward safety, behind the rough line the Alpha and Delta squads had managed to form, and set Falks down among a pair of other troopers who had been wounded as well. Delta's medic hurried over to see to Jordan, while Colt picked up his rifle and hurried back to the line.

"Corporal," he heard in his ear as he crouched behind a burnt-out pickup truck and raised his weapon. It was Sergeant Hunnigan again.

"Yeah?" He replied, sighting and firing on a knot of advancing Nod militia. One of them toppled over, and the others dove for cover.

"We can't hold them much longer," Hunnigan said, and Colt grimaced. He checked his ammo, and found he was down to half magazines. More importantly, the Nod troops, urged on by the Black Hand and the confessors, were pushing hard. They were outnumbered by at least a company-sized force, and Colt knew they didn't have the ammo to hold them off all day. And if they retreated, that would just bring the Nod troops after them all the faster.

They had only one choice: hold on and keep fighting to the end. Bleed the bastards as best they could.

* * *

_**PROXIMITY ALERT!**_

The flashing red letters on Havers' goggles jerked him out of his shooting trance. He looked up, met Brooks' eyes, and knew he'd gotten the same alert. They both knew what it meant: the smart claymores they'd set behind them as they moved up the stairs had just been triggered.

Nod soldiers were coming up the stairs below.

Havers quickly slung his GLS-70 over his shoulder and grabbed his submachinegun, while Brooks spun and jogged back toward the stairwell access. he ran inside, GD2 shouldered, and looked down the stairs. He saw movement, heard yelling, and could see men in paramilitary fatigues hurrying up the steps, cursing and shouting in rage. One of them looked up, rifle raised, and spotted Brooks right before the spotter drilled three rounds into his face.

The stairwell erupted with fire as the Nod militia shot back, their guns blazing wildly and the room echoing with the reports of their rifles mixed with their wild shouts and battle cries.

Brooks reached up to his chest, palmed a frag grenade, and armed it. He counted to two, and then tossed it down the stairwell, before running back to the door. As he reached it, he pulled a small, flat disc out of one of his hip pouches and set it on the ceiling with adhesive tape. Brooks tapped a button, and the smart claymore primed itself. He heard screams below as Nod soldiers were caught by the grenade.

The spotter ran back outside, and spotted Havers as he stood next the fire escape. Brooks hurried over without asking any questions; they both knew their position was compromised and they needed to regroup.

Behind them, two Nod soldiers hurried up to the top of the stairs and ran toward the stairwell's rooftop access. They passed beneath the inconspicuous little disc Brooks had attached to the ceiling.

The sensor inside the disc detected human movement below, and made out the distinct form of weapons in their hands. A millisecond later, it had scanned their uniforms, and determined that they were not wearing any of the seventeen hundred and thirty nine variations of GDI-approved combat uniforms that would identify them as friendly combatants.

Two milliseconds after that, it sent out a short radio pulse to alert the snipers, and then the "face" side of the disc exploded, hurling hundreds of tiny needles at supersonic velocities throughout the room, the tiny spikes lancing through skin, bone, cloth, flak vests, and concrete with equal ease. The Nod soldiers simply dropped, pulped where they stood by the tiny flechettes that literally tore them to ribbons. Then, one second after the needles had erupted from the disc and tore through the Nod soldiers, they erupted into flares, like tiny incendiary grenades. The shredded Nod troopers, their equipment, and the walls of the stairwell flared, flash-fried, and then smoked, the stink of cooked flesh and molten metal instantly filling the stairwell.

The Nod troops were lucky they'd been killed so quickly. If they'd been merely wounded, they would have had dozens of glowing slivers of white-hot metal buried in their bodies, boiling their flesh and muscle.

Nasty little things, smart claymores.

By the time the rest of the Nod troops had worked their way up - one stopping to hurl that morning's rations violently down the stairwell once he'd seen the carnage left by Brooks' trap - they found the rooftop deserted, and the GDI sniper team was on the ground. They jogged up the alley, toward another vantage point.

Havers hoped he would get in place in time to do some good.

* * *

Disaster came in the form of small, tumbling canisters, lobbed by a couple of the confessors.

Alpha was spread out among a group of vehicles and a dumpster at the left side of the road, firing furiously. The moment the confessors exposed themselves to strike, they opened up on them, cutting one down just as his arm pumped. Nonetheless, the canisters hurtled through the air, and the GDI troops started to scatter.

Then they impacted and exploded, releasing clouds of greenish-black gas that billowed outward quickly, engulfing several of the squad. The clouds quickly dissipated, the chemical breaking down in seconds upon exposure to oxygen, but by that time it had already swept over the defenders. Though their rebreathers filtered out the gas, it ran its way deeper, contacting skin in beneath the cracks of the troopers' armor, in the seams between gloves and their fatigues, seeping through any gap in the GDI troops' gear. Colt turned toward them when he heard sudden, terrified screaming from the soldiers, and his eyes were fixed on what happened to the squad.

Two members of Alpha simply dropped to their knees, crying out in sheer terror and firing their weapons toward the enemy on full auto. Their magazines ran out in a couple of heartbeats, but they kept pointing them at the Nod soldiers, pulling the triggers frantically, as if unaware that they were empty. Another man flopped onto his back, firing his weapon randomly into the air. One man managed to stumble away from the blast unaffected, but then was cut down by shots from behind him.

The last two members of Alpha turned toward the remaining GDI troops, shouldered their weapons, and opened fire.

Sergeant Hunnigan flopped backward as rounds drilled through her armor, and the rest of Delta Squad could only dive for cover, finding themselves struck with fatal hesitation to fire on their own comrades, confusion staying their trigger fingers for lethal seconds.

Beside Colt, Falks started to shout something when a burst from the afflicted men shattered his visor. He dropped, blood erupting from his face and his voice dying away in a blast of gunfire.

Training took hold as those two soldiers died, and Corporal Mitchell Colt leveled his rifle at the threats. He pulled the trigger on GD2 twice in rapid succession, shifting his aim a hair between each squeeze. The rifle kicked against his shoulder, and he watched with detached, fascinated horror as the two GDI troopers pitched backward, almost in slow motion.

The soldiers disappeared behind the cars they'd been crouched behind, and Colt pulled his gaze away from the sight, bringing his rifle to bear on the Nod troops that were surging forward. In that heartbeat, Colt knew he was apparently the highest-ranking man in the dwindling force of GDI soldiers, and he couldn't let the fact that he'd just killed two of his own men cloud his judgment.

"Engage!" he shouted, firing another burst. He heard the brass of his ejected casing clatter on the pavement somehow, despite the whirlwind of noise rushing all around him. "Engage, dammit! _Open fire_!"

* * *

The Nod commanders leading their regiment-sized assault force on Langley had been forewarned that a GDI relief force had arrived to recapture the contested base, and had expected stiff resistance as a result. However, they believed they would be able to overwhelm the GDI troops with a combined thrust by a large conventional army that outnumbered the reinforcements by, at worst, three-to-one odds. Meanwhile, Nod special forces would make a counterthrust through the suburbs and flank the defenders; an inversion of the same tactic they'd used to rout the GDIAF troops hours earlier.

However, the fog of war is a cruel thing. Their intelligence was only a half-hour old, which in military terms was nearly immediate. Even so, things could change in half an hour.

For example, fifty thousand Global Defense Initiative Marines could have landed from a fully-equipped offshore Marine Expeditionary Unit, complete with armor, air, and logistical support.

Approximately two thousand Nod soldiers, with a hundred Scorpion light tanks, several hundred light attack buggies and motorcycles, several dozen Reckoner-model APCs, and about two hundred light trucks rolled toward Langley Air Force Base, and found themselves running headlong into approximately two hundred GDI Mil-AH502 Hammerhead gunships, each of them having deposited between eight to twelve GDI Marines right behind the five-hundred-odd embattled troops of the 103rd Recon Division's Fourth Battalion.

Meanwhile, smashing through the surf to the south, the remaining forty-five thousand GDI Marines, along with their armored assault assets, were hitting the beaches all around the attached support base. Dust and sand filled the air as Predator MBTs, Pitbull recon vehicles, and Guardian APCs rolled off hundreds of hovercraft. Among the m were the low, hovering forms of Slingshot anti-air batteries, their quad cannons raised to the sky and sensor batteries hunting for Nod air support. Thousands of Marines stormed off the transports on foot, charging up the beaches and securing perimeters around the landing zones.

Screaming overhead came the final blade in the Marines' many-pronged battle force: the swept-wing forms of Firehawk VTOL strike craft, which swooped over Langley like birds of prey, before diving down upon their victims.

The Black Hand support thrust to the south never materialized to flank the GDI defenders. Apparently, they had caught a stray platoon of infidel troops, and two entire companies of the most elite of Nod's fanatical soldiers had veered off the crush them. The Hand operated on its own separate comms network and chain of command, so the Nod commanders in the north couldn't pull them back. There was no hope for flanking support for the Nod assault force coming in to the north.

For that same assault force, the fields just north of Langley AFB became a killing ground.

PFC Cale Winters hadn't been sure if he could believe his ears when he heard the roaring chop of rotors overhead, but when he looked back and saw the sky almost _blacken _with the wide-winged forms of Hammerheads bearing down, his heart had skipped a beat. Then, when the twin-linked pairs of 20mm rotary guns mounted on each chopper's wings opened up on the Nod lines, his heart soared. A roar went up the line as Fourth Battalion let out a hearty cheer, and Cale turned back toward the lines of Nod troops storming across the field. He picked out a target - EVA was far too busy to assign him _individual_ targets, and calculated angle and trajectory in his head. He raised his grenade launcher and fired off three quick shells at one of the advancing Nod armored buggies.

The first grenade exploded against its thin armor, buckling the outer layers and sending the vehicle swerving to the side. The second exploded against its side, puncturing the armor again and sending shrapnel and concussive force through its body. Though Cale didn't see his handiwork, metal shards tore through the buggy's gunner, shredding him from the waist down to his knees.

The third grenade punched through the rent in the armor, exploded against the dying gunner, and cooked off the buggy's ammunition cache. The little vehicle erupted with a thousand sudden detonations as its own bullets ripped through its hull, tearing apart the driver and ripping the light vehicle asunder.

Cale turned, looking for another target, a feeling of deep satisfaction running through him.

Behind him, he felt more than heard movement, and his radio chirped.

"Hold fire, friendlies at your six," came an unfamiliar voice. Cale turned his eyes on a Reckoner APC as it rolled toward the line, its side ports blazing with gunfire as the troops inside sprayed the GDI positions. Rockets hammered it, followed by the crack and white vapor trail of railguns thundering against its hull. A shot hit the Reckoner's tracks, and it slewed to a halt - a mobility kill. A dozen anti-armor weapons hammered it, including two grenades from Cale's launcher, and suddenly the Reckoner went up in a ball of fire.

Nod troopers stumbled out, some with their fatigues ablaze. Cale couldn't hear their screams, but he watched the men flail about, dropping to the ground and trying to douse the fires. Rifle fire from the defenders cut them down within seconds, and the PFC couldn't tell if the rounds were mercy shots or simple pragmatic executions. In truth, he didn't care.

The figures he sensed coming up behind him moved up alongside Cale's rifle squad. their camouflage was a little different, the armor and webbing of slightly different configuration. He noticed their gear was a little on the lighter side, favoring less body armor and more rifle magazines and grenades, like the recon troopers of C Company. Their rebreathers were pulled back on their helmets or simply resting on their chests, and Cale saw their predatory grins.

The Marines rolled up to the barricades and foxholes Fourth had dug out, dropping prone or taking cover, and opened fire. They didn't ask for updates or targets, or even offered more to the defenders than a quick word of warning that they were present. They knew what to do: _kill_.

Firehawks bore down, bombs dropping from their wings and hitting the Nod armor elements. Fireballs and concussive detonations blew the Scorpions and Reckoners to shrapnel and burning fuel. Up above, Cale heard the Hammerheads continue firing, scything streams of bullets tearing apart the Nod invaders, brass casing raining down like metal waterfalls. Enemy soldiers tumbled out of trucks or dropped in the field as they tried to cross the open ground, firing their rifles futilely. Other men just vanished as the Hammerheads' gunfire traced lines over their positions. Trucks burned, motorcycles fell apart, and Scorpion tanks were chewed up, their armor perforated by hundreds of 20mm rounds per second. Bodies, fire, twisted metal, and smoke lined the ground past the base.

Abso-_fucking_-lutely glorious_._

* * *

They charged over the position where Alpha had once been standing. Nod soldiers fell upon the three hallucinating troopers, shooting two of them in the head and beating the third to death with their rifle butts or boots.

Others surged toward the GDI defenders, rushing around barricades and firing wild flurries of poorly-aimed suppressive fire. Colt dropped two of the militants in rapid succession, and then rounds scored along the hood of the car he stood behind. He dropped behind cover, reloading his rifle - three-quarters of its magazine was spent - and looked back up, to see a confessor only twenty meters away, his arm cocked back.

"Fuck!" Colt screamed, emptying half his magazine into the man's chest in sheer panic. The confessor pitched back, dropping the gas grenade he was holding. Colt exhaled, and turned toward another target, only to see a dozen militants running toward him. The ones whose eyes weren't obscured behind goggles or gas masks were wide and manic, and he saw at least one of then stabbing something into his arm, a pneumatic syringe.

The militants were popping battle stimulants.

Colt fired again, two quick bursts that dropped as many of the enemy, but they kept coming, one hurling something at him: a grenade.

Colt ducked behind cover, screaming at the top of his lungs as the grenade hurtled end over end at him. there was a flash, a blast of force, and Colt's rifle slipped from his fingers. He felt an impact on his back, and rolled over, dazed and disoriented.

Concussion grenade, he thought to himself, some rational piece of his mind running as the battle raged around him. Made sense, frags released shrapnel that could hit you as you charged-

A shadow loomed overhead, holding a rifle. The corporal could see his features beneath the black goggles he wore. A smile spread across the man's face as he put a boot on Colt's chest, crushing him back against the pavement.

"Die, oppressor!" screamed the Nod militant standing over him.

Colt shot him through the neck with his sidearm.

"No," the corporal grunted.

Another militant rushed forward, screaming incoherently and pointing his rifle at Colt. The GDI trooper pivoted and fired again, winging the man in the shoulder and spinning him around. A third man leapt over the car and started shooting his sub-machinegun at Colt, who turned toward him.

The Nod trooper exploded across the midsection, a white vapor-trail of superheated air appearing for half a second.

Sixty meters down the street, Sergeant Joshua "Simo" Havers fired again, decapitating a confessor. Beside him, Brooks was laying down covering fire with his GD2.

Colt scrambled to his feet, even as another Nod soldier leapt over the car. The GDI trooper fired two shots, dropping him, and then a fifth militant slammed into his side.

"His voice moves with us!" the soldier screamed into Colt's ears as he bore the GDI soldier down. "We strike in his name!"

Colt's elbow shattered the man's nose, and he rolled over on top of him.

"Fucking!" he shouted jabbing his pistol into the man's crushed nose. _"Die!_" The round blew off his head.

There was more wild screaming behind Colt, and he spun, shooting his pistol point-blank into a Nod trooper's stomach. He heard battle prayers being shouted by the confessors, was surrounded by mad chanting, and saw another militant leaping at him, with two of his buddies behind him, waving their rifles like clubs. The confessors were whipping them into a battle frenzy, their amplified voices filling the Nod troopers with Kane's insanity and the combat stims robbing them of any battle sense, but giving them a terrifying clarity of will and numbness to pain.

On all sides of him, Colt saw and heard the few surviving GDI troopers locked in savage close combat with Nod troops. Colt himself met the next charging lunatic - a wiry kid who couldn't have been out of his teens - with a body check, firing his pistol into the next man in line. The kid went down hard, and Colt stomped his chest with his boot, either killing or incapacitating him. He didn't care, as the next man had ran headlong into Colt, tackling him again.

The militant screamed wildly, pinning his pistol hand to the pavement, shouting incomprehensible epithets or prayers or _whatever_-

"Shut the hell up!" Colt ended them when his other hand dropped to his belt, whipped out his knife, and thrust it into the soldier's throat. He kicked the shocked man off him, raising his pistol to shoot another enemy soldier in the hip. He stumbled, and surged forward, firing his own rifle from the hip. Rounds slammed into Colt's armor, shaking his body, and one deflected off his helmet, knocking his head back.

Colt looked up into the sky and saw another shadow. Another militant, about to execute him. Colt raised his pistol shakily to shoot the lunatic, and the weapon clicked empty. He stared at his weapon as if it had betrayed him, and his eyes flicked back toward the shadow.

It wasn't a militant. Militants didn't have wings . . . or rotors . . . or twin-linked chainguns spraying rivers of superheated metallic death.

He blinked, looking up at the helicopter - Hammerhead, he realized - and saw the emblem on the side of the chopper.

"Fucking jarheads," he muttered, laughing uncontrollably. He kept laughing as he saw drop lines descend from the sides of the Hammerhead, and men rappelling down to the street, firing their weapons even as they hit the pavement.

_God bless the fucking Marine Corps, _Colt thought as he lay on his back, laughing his guts out as the Hammerheads blasted away overhead and the devil dogs bit into the Black Hand.

* * *

"EVA," Karrde said, looking over the screen with a deep, heavy sense of satisfaction resting across his shoulders.

"Contact the Pentagon," he said. "Langley is ours."

* * *

_**InOps Report: Brotherhood of Nod Belief System and Its Challenges **_

_Abstract: The greatest challenge GDI faces in battling the Brotherhood of Nod is that while its military forces can be defeated and its leaders killed, as long as the fundamental _idea_ of the Brotherhood persists, it cannot truly be defeated. Nod is as much a _religion_ and a _concept_ as it is a economic, political, and military entity, and the general prevalence of the belief of the right to religious freedom that is in GDI's charter means that we cannot directly attack the religious aspects of Nod. Furthermore, the basic principles of the Brotherhood of Nod's religion make it even more difficult to overcome._

_At the most basic level, Nod's religion is based on optimism. Nod believes in the concept of human ascension, and holds this very goal as a divine and holy task. Anything that will further the cause of human ascension is a divine tool, and those who progress the cause of human ascension are regarded as divine prophets. Quite naturally, Kane has shaped the Brotherhood so that they view him as its greatest prophet, and thus as its generally unquestioned divine leader - though by the beliefs of certain fringe elements of Nod, even Kane is not above reproach, and if a "more" divine leader can be found, they would flock to that leader instead. We have, in the past, attempted to use this oddly fractious nature of Nod, in the form of the Black Hand Confessor Marcion, to limited effect._

_Tiberium is considered by Nod to be the greatest catalyst for human ascension and evolution, and thus a highly sacred substance. This has, in turn, resulted in Nod's continuous hardening and opposition to our attempts to eradicate Tiberium; GDI's attempts to save the Earth from the ravages of the alien crystal are considered "blasphemy" by Nod. The cult's fixation on Tiberium is extreme, and there have been numerous recorded instances where Nod personnel have taken "grafted" tattoos of processed Tiberium into their skin, or chemical infusions of Tiberium-based drugs to boost their physical abilities._

_Of particular concern for our analysts is the fact that Nod's religion is fundamentally compatible with many other religions. The basic belief in helping humanity ascend beyond its limits - "Peace Through Power" - hits a humanitarian chord that is part and parcel of most other major religions. Of particular concern is how easily Nod's beliefs can coincide with those of religions such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Tao, and Shinto, and how it can connect with Christian and Muslim imagery of heaven and the Rapture. A vast portion of Nod troops are Islamic, Eastern Orthodox, or of Far Eastern religions. Of additional concern are those Nod soldiers who have taken on a suicidal bent; these fanatical Nod soldiers generally do not believe in any sort of divine reward waiting for them after death. Rather, they are willing to commit suicide as part of the greater cause of human ascension; this makes them even more dangerous, as they act not out of selfish motives, but _selfless_ ones, to help their fellow humans . . . ._

* * *

_**GDI Engineering Archives - Specifications for Mil-AH502 "Hammerhead" Gunship**_

_**Crew: 4 (Pilot, co-pilot/weapons officer, two gunners)**_

_**Capacity: Twelve passengers**_

_**Length: 22.5 meters**_

_**Rotor Diameter: 20.4 meters**_

_**Wingspan: 20 meters**_

_**Height: 7.2 meters**_

_**Empty Weight: 10,500 kg**_

_**Max Takeoff Weight: 18,000 kg**_

_**Armament: 2 GAU- 73 20mm Twin Rotary Cannons**_

_**Secondary Armament: Variable (hard points in crew bay for mounting squad support weaponry)**_

_The Hammerhead is, like many of the Global Defense Initiative's more successful weapons designs, a result of expansion on research and design pioneered by the Red Army in World War II. The Hammerhead is based off the Mil-24 "Hind" helicopter gunship used by the Soviets to support and transport infantry forces that were deployed against the Allies. Like the Mil-24, the Hammerhead serves the dual purpose of acting as a rapid infantry transport vehicle and a close-air support platform. _

_The 20mm rotary cannons are capable of mowing down infantry and chewing up light vehicles, and the crew bay includes hardpoints and firing slits to allow infantry to fire their weapons in relative safety. The crew bay also includes vents to channel the backblast from missile launchers, enabling soldiers with launchers to fire while airborne without risking burning themselves alive. However, this requires the use of approximately half of the crew bay, both parts of which must be sealed off from each other, limiting the number of troops who can fire their missile launchers to a single two-man missile team . . . ._

* * *

_-_

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Funny thing happened between last chapter and this one. I got my greedy mitts on Kane's Wrath.

_. . . whoa._

So, yeah. Kane's Wrath units are definitely going to be appearing in this story. I'm probably going to be making references to ZOCOM, and you've already seen the Black Hand in action. Also, expect to see Epic units at some point, but not for a while. :P

I know, we didn't see anything relating to Lieutenant Fariq and his rescue this chapter. Patience, patience . . . .

Next chapter, expect to see a shift in focus. Now that the side battles are out of the way, we can see some preparation for bigger events. Pentagon siege, the White House, Redmond Boyle, and yes . . . more of everyone's favorite bald madman.

Answering a couple questions about last chapter: Emily Wong _is_ a reference to _Mass Effect_. Tim's gear, though, isn't a reference to BNW; its actually a bit inspired by the gargoyles from _Snow Crash. _And I'm glad someone caught the _Serenity _reference last chapter, too; I write enough of that setting as it is :P

Until next chapter . . . .


	11. Chapter X: Shock

_**Chapter Ten: Shock**_

_"Its standing Nod policy that if a Brother or Sister is wounded in battle, we leave them be until we can recover them safely. No heroics. It'll simply cost us more men trying to recover the wounded in battle, and we've got the manpower to replace the injured if they die in the meantime. If there's three things the Brotherhood has in plentiful supply, those are Tiberium, hate, and manpower."_

_-Anonymous Nod tactician_

Commander Logan Rawne didn't like aid stations. They put a face on his chess pieces.

His insurgent force had set up their command and control center in a baseball field outside a small school, and had converted the school itself into a makeshift barracks, aid station, and temple until a proper Hand of Nod could be fabricated to support their troops. Rawne himself had checked the order as he waited, confirming that the prefabricated parts for the facility would be ready within the next two hours, and drone assembly would take another two hours.

They would need working, specialized facilities like the Hand if they were to support the advance; Rawne wasn't optimistic enough to believe they had the momentum to fully overrun the GDI defenders with their first push.

In the meantime, he found himself taking a detour through the school itself, due to a GDI mortar barrage - probably from a squadron of their damned Pitbulls. It was unguided and random, but the barrage had put the base security force on stand-to, and while that was happening senior officers weren't supposed to be outdoors until the all-clear was sounded. Rawne had ducked into the school so he could cut through it to his operations center.

Only now he was detouring through the aid stations, because the main hallways were being choked with traffic. Between various soldiers moving to and from the barracks and temple facilities, message and transport drones carting weapons and medical supplies around the corridors, chanting black-clad priests and confessors, and the all-too common sight of wounded troops being carted on stretchers, the crowds of humanity were jamming the main corridors, so that even the Battle Commander himself couldn't get anywhere.

He'd found a clear route through the sector marked for medical purposes, and worked his way through it, almost wishing he'd chosen to stick with the corridors. Rawne strode through hallways lined with wounded men and women lying on the floor or crammed in school rooms, with medics patching up vicious wounds or performing emergency surgery. He passed one room where blood was running off a bed and pooling on the floor as two medics frantically tried to save a man whose gut had been lacerated by grenade shrapnel. Another wounded man, his head wrapped in a bandage, was limping toward them with a mop, trying to help soak up the blood so they could work without slipping.

Rawne could smell a strange mixture of disinfectant, blood, and incense in the halls, and over the pained moans and occasional scream he heard the chanting of Nod priests. Chaplains and confessors, clad in simple robes instead of their elaborate and heavy battle dress, walked the halls offering blessings and words of comfort to the wounded, or giving the worst off last rites and shots of pain-killing euphoric mercy drugs. Rawne heard a curious mixture of Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Spanish, and even some Russian and other East European languages as the confessors offered services for any number of religions, as well as those of Nod's own cult.

It felt, oddly, like Rawne was walking through a bazaar in some far-off country, instead of a hospital filled with the dead and dying. The languages and scents pulled him away from the reality he was surrounded by - a reality he ignored as much as possible anyway.

As he cut through the aid station, he heard yelling. Rawne frowned and picked up his pace, stepping over wounded men and women and around orderlies and medics, and found himself moving into a side room, what had once been an office. It was now a holding area for recovering wounded personnel who couldn't be immediately sent elsewhere.

"I am not being transferred to a damn holding area!" a woman was shouting. "I'm not going to be sent to the rear for this!"

"Private, calm down," responded what sounded like a doctor. "I don't have any control over where you're-"

"I don't give a damn!"

Rawne stepped into the room where the argument was taking place, and found himself standing next to a stretcher where a woman was sitting, stripped down to her undershirt and fatigue pants. Beside her was a harried-looking medic, trying to placate the woman, hands held out before him in a calming gesture. A medical drone drifted nearby, awaiting orders.

Not much good those gestures would do, Rawne noted, as the woman's yes were covered with bandages. She would have been pretty, he guessed, if he could see the rest of her face. What was visible didn't look half-bad - covered with small cuts and abrasions though it was.

"Look, you can send a request up the chain, but for right now you're getting transferred to rear echelon until you've healed," the medic said, and the woman cursed angrily at him.

"This was my first engagement, and-"

"What's the situation?" Rawne asked, and the medic looked up, his eyes widening.

"Sir," he said, straightening and nodding. the private on the makeshift litter sat up as well in the presence of a superior officer. Rawne looked around, noting the med drone, and gestured for it to approach before the medic could speak. With a couple of taps on his forearm computer, Rawne called up the woman's medical data.

"I was having a disagreement with the Private here," the medic continued. "We need room for more patients, and she's getting transferred back."

"They're pulling me out of the fight, sir," the woman responded quickly, vehemently. "I'm still able-bodied. I can still fight!"

"Except that you're blind, Private Marona," the medic said, shaking his head.

"Says here," Rawne mused, looking over Private Mari Marona's file. "Shrapnel from a grenade, during room-to-room combat with GDI troops. Recovered by Black Hand after being wounded in action. Correct?"

"Yes sir," Marona replied with a nod. Rawne looked over her record, nodding as he did so.

"Top marks in selection, qualified for possible Shadow candidacy," he added, looking up at her, and she nodded again. "Why did you take infantry instead?"

"To fight, sir," she replied. "Shadows are spies. I wanted to go up against the enemy face-to-face."

"Well, you've got a good attitude, at least," Rawne said with a smile.

"Commander, is there some-" the medic began, but the commander cut him off.

"Do her wounds preclude reconstructive surgery?" Rawne asked, and the medic shook his head.

"There will be scarring, but we can replace the eyes with cybernetic replacements," he said. "But she's low priority, and will-"

"They're only going to give me Class Two implants, Commander," Marona protested. "Twenty/forty vision, best! I'll never be qualified for infantry again!" He heard strained emotion in her voice as she said that, and Rawne nodded.

"Class Three or better is required for front-line infantry work," the commander mused. "And then, only for special forces units. We don't have the resources or facilities to outfit everyone with eye injuries with Class Three or better. Certainly not for line infantry."

"Yes, sir," Marona said, and he could hear the anger and frustration in her voice a little more clearly now. "Today was my first day in combat, and I-"

"Its the first day for lots of troopers," Rawne said with a shrug. "Many of them aren't as lucky as you."

"Sir, I-" Marona said, and then paused. Her lips pressed together, and she nodded slightly. "Yes, sir."

Rawne stood there for a moment, looking over her data again. Her face, a blurry, quick shot taken from basic selection, flashed over his screen. She really had been decent-looking when she'd had eyes. He frowned, mulling it over, and looked to Marona again.

"Battle Commander override," he spoke, looking up at the medical drone. "Rawne, Logan."

"Override accepted," the drone spoke, its voice low, mechanical, inflectionless.

"Reschedule transfer for Private Mari Marona. Cancel reconstructive surgery for Class Two optical replacements. Reschedule reconstructive surgery for Class _Seven_ optical enhancements. Tag priority, high, immediate."

Silence filled the room as both medic and soldier gaped at the commander.

"Sir?" Marona said, not sure what she'd just heard. Rawne smiled, and reached out, patting her shoulder.

"One of my personal bodyguards was killed in action today at Andrews," he said. "There's a spot open."

"Sir, you want me to . . . ."

"If you're up for it."

Her shocked expression shifted to a giddy smile.

"Yes, sir, I would!" Rawne grinned, and patted her arm.

"Good," he said, and glanced to the medic. "You. Take care of this, personally. There might be a commendation for you if its done quick."

"Yes sir!" the medic replied, standing ramrod straight.

Rawne stepped out of the aid station a few minutes later, a skip to his step and a smile on his face that even the chanting confessors and dying men all around him couldn't shake.

* * *

The Marine medic had finished examining Colt, which mean that he'd more or less asked if he was hurting anywhere and checking for blood spurting from unnoticed holes. Once Colt was clear, the medic moved on to assist in the more severe cases.

The Corporal looked around in a daze, hearing the Hammerheads spraying gunfire about a kilometer north, chasing the rest of the surviving Black Hand troops. He found himself peering down at the Nod corpses, many of them with faces locked in blank expressions of rage or gleeful fanaticism. None of them seemed pained; the euphoric drugs they had been taking had seen to that.

Then there were the fallen GDI troopers. Colt sat and looked at those men and women for a long while, letting the rest of the world drown itself away. A few Marines were moving the bodies of the fallen friendlies out of the way, and he watched them go about their grim business with numb awareness. After several long minutes, Colt started to stand, his legs shaky and uncertain. A hand hit his shoulder, a passing Marine steadying him, and distantly, Colt heard him ask if he was okay. The corporal nodded and moved away.

He picked his way past Nod bodies, noting other Marines policing weapons and checking for enemy wounded. The occasional gunshot echoed around the street when they did.

The dazed corporal finally found his way to where Alpha had been positioned, and located the two troopers he'd killed. He crouched beside them, and removed their helmets, shaking his head as he looked over their ruined faces. He knew these guys, had taken drinks and played pool or cards with them from time to time. Good men, reliable soldiers, loyal as one could reasonably ask.

And he'd shot them. Two bursts to their faces.

He stared at the bodies and the wrecked skulls for a while, and then fished out their dog tags. Colt slipped them into his pockets, and then moved aside as a few Marines came up to check and move the bodies. They would be given a proper burial in due time.

Colt promised himself he would make sure of that.

* * *

"Why now?"

The trooper standing by the other side of the wide window looked up. Lieutenant Fariq was sitting on an overturned cabinet at his side of the window, watching the other end of the street, the captured M16 Mk. II cradled loosely in his hands. They could hear the rattle of gunfire outside, mixed with the high-pitched scream of Hammerhead chainguns. The occasional detonation rumbled through the walls of the apartment building.

"What?" the trooper asked, the filtered voice coming through the helmet's rebreather was a higher-pitched than he expected. With their heavy body armor, visors, and air filters, it was hard to distinguish gender.

The pilot gestured back toward the window after he got over his surprise, indicating the smoke columns rising up to the north, the helicopters flying overhead, and the bodies of the Nod troopers they'd killed.

"This," he said, frowning. "Nod. Why now?"

The trooper shrugged. Fariq wished he had a helmet instead of just a an ear-bud, so he could read her actual name, as her armor didn't display her name. He heard movement behind him as one of the other troopers shifted position. Warbling voices came over the radio, giving routine check-ins. What had Corporal Rodigo said her name was?

"Jinna?" he asked, and the trooper looked up. After a second she shook her head.

"Terrence," she replied, a tinge of amusement in her voice.

"Oh. I thought you were . . . ." he looked back out the window. The Hammerheads were blasting away at something else.

"I thought we won," Terrence remarked after a few moments of silence. Fariq glanced to her. "Kane was dead, Nod was broken. The war was over two decades ago."

"Five minutes ago I thought you were a man," Fariq replied. Terrence looked up at him through her visor, and they burst out laughing. He leaned back, setting down his rifle, and let the shaking laughter hit him. Some of the other troopers glanced over, and he heard a few chuckles or mumbled questions from them.

The fit died down after a moment, and Fariq wiped his eyes, grabbing his rifle. The radio hissed and murmured again. A long stream of automatic gunfire echoed, close by, and a pair of Hammerheads swooped through the air, spraying rivers of metal from their dual twin-linked chainguns and launching volleys of rockets from belly pods.

_"Platoon," _came a voice over the comm, and Fariq glanced up. It was Lieutenant Lumbargo, First Platoon's commander. _"The jarheads have finished securing the area. Sit tight for evac."_

_"Sir," _someone asked. _"Any news on C's Third?" _

_"Yeah," _Lumbargo said, his voice a bit heavy. He was silent for a moment. _"They ran into two companies of Black Hand."_

Cursing and muttering filled the room at that.

_"Any survivors, sir?" _some else asked, and Lumbargo paused.

_"Platoon took eighty percent casualties. Most of the survivors are badly wounded."_

Fariq was silent, staring out the window, clutching his rifle tightly as the weight of those words crashed into him. Those men wouldn't have been out here if it weren't for him. Every death in that unit was on his head.

He had still not spoken another word when the Marine APCs arrived to pick up the platoon. He barely looked up when Terrence tapped him on the shoulder, and the pilot slowly rose, numb and impossibly exhausted as he trudged after her toward the waiting transport.

* * *

The Marines had transported the few wounded from the botched rescue attempt back to the operating command center via Guardian APCs. Colt sat in the back of one of the transports, the rear hatch open to let some real air into the vehicle, which was stuffed with four badly wounded men. There wasn't any room for him to sit, so Colt had taken an uncomfortable improvised seat on the very edge of one of the stretchers, most of his body exposed to the open air out the back of the vehicle. As the transport bumped and rolled along the glittery mirror-shine pavement, the soldier looked over the dog tags he'd recovered.

Only four men from Third Platoon, C Company had made it out of that clusterfuck intact. Five wounded had survived; Alpha was a complete loss, and Delta had mostly wounded. Bravo and Echo were also gone; they'd caught the other half of the Black Hand assault force on another street, and while they'd kept them from flanking the rest of the platoon, the men and women of those two squads had been completely wiped out. One of the two sniper teams had been caught in the open and killed as well.

Charlie was down to Jordan, who was missing his arm, and Colt himself. Effectively speaking, Third Platoon no longer existed.

The Guardian came to a halt sometime later, and the corporal looked up from the tags, to see they'd arrived at the support base by the beach. GDI troops were bustling about, and from the direction of the beach Colt could see lines of Marines and armored vehicles rolling off hovercraft as they slid onto the sands. The corporal scooped up his pack and weapon off the rack he'd stowed them on, and clambered out of the APC, moving out of the way of a team of medics who rushed over to grab the wounded.

He stood there on the pavement, watching them lift up his fellow recon troopers, medical drones hovering overhead and tending to the wounded as they were loaded onto gurneys and hurried off. Once they were out of sight, and the Marine APC began to roll away, Colt found himself alone and cut off. Dozens of men and women moved past him, maintenance robots rolled or floated past, and he could hear hundreds of voices, but at the same time, he was completely by himself. His unit was gone, and he didn't know any of the Marines or Airmen surrounding him.

The trooper wandered over to a stack of ammunition crates that had been left by someone, piled up by one of the empty motor pool lots; all the base's vehicles were ferrying troops and supplies, and what little wasn't being used by Fourth Battalion had been snatched by the Marines. He flopped down on the crate, noting it was marked as 12.7mm rounds for the Guardians' dual machinegun turrets. He idly peeked inside, and frowned, seeing boxes of packed 7.62x39mm rifle rounds instead. A supply fuck-up, probably why they'd been left there.

In a situation like this, he needed to report to his superiors, but there was still a battle going on and every trooper in the battalion was north at the airbase, fighting off the remnants of the Nod assault force. Pretty much anyone short of the senior battalion commanders would be out there directing the troops, which meant he had no one to report in to.

So Colt sat on the supply crate, watching the Marines rolling off the beach, and tried to think of what he should do now. After a few minutes of simply letting himself rest, he found himself slipping back to the battle and the troopers he'd been forced to kill. Cringing, the corporal pushed the memory back, not wanting to think about it anymore, but it still came on, unbidden. With a quick, vicious gesture, he snatched up his helmet and put it back on, turning on his HUD and patching into the battalion network. Accessing the comm net and checking on his comrades might pull his mind off what he'd done.

Almost immediately, his HUD flashed with an incoming text message, and he brought it up. Colt stiffened as he read the words, and jumped up off his crate, gathering up his gear again. Slinging his rifle and pack over his shoulder, Colt started jogging toward the command post, double-time.

When you got a message that the Battle Commander himself wanted to talk to you, you didn't jerk around responding to it.

* * *

The wall directly ahead splintered and shattered, and one of the assault troops twitched and fell backward, crashing against a wooden cabinet. Another man twisted around, his armor deformed and weeping blood, the booming report of a shotgun sounding up the passage. The air was thick with dust and a tinge of smoke.

Brother-Captain Jose Alvarez moved forward to the corner of the intersection, splinters of wood paneling and hunks of plaster deflecting off his armor. His cape, shredded and torn from the kilometers of fighting he'd passed through, hung limp behind him as he shouldered his rifle. In his huge, heavy gauntlets and body armor, the assault rifle he was carrying seemed like a delicate toy, not like his laser rifle or flamethrower.

He was approaching the intersection's corner from the right side, which meant he'd be leaning to his left. Without thinking about it, Jose switched his grip, hefting the rifle's handle and trigger group with his left hand and bracing it with his right. Rounds scythed up the hallway, tearing holes in the once clean and pristine walls as the GDI troops tried to desperately stymie the Black Hand of Kane.

Jose paused at the intersection, a chunk of wood bouncing off his helmet. A quintet of Nod assault troops - well-trained light infantry in full-body armor and helmets with glittering red optics arrays - lined up at the other side of the intersection, waiting to move. The squad leader nodded to Jose, who nodded back. The Hand glanced at his HUD, confirmed the other two Hands in his fire team were behind him, and rolled around the corner, rifle up.

He spotted movement - a GDI trooper in a doorway, unhelmeted, pointing a shotgun his way - and fired a single burst that tore through his throat and jaw. He lurched backward, shotgun firing into the floor and ripping up a chunk of carpet. Jose sidestepped, dropping to one knee as his fireteam swept in behind him, their assault rifles blazing. On the other side of the passage, the assault troops began to storm in as well. The entire corridor became a channel for a torrent of gunfire, dust clouding the air as the GDI troops down the passage returned fire. Wood and glass broke, centuries-old paintings were torn apart and cast to the floor, and men screamed and died.

One of the assault troops fell, rounds cutting through his midsection and deflecting up through the armor plating into his bodyglove. He thrashed on the floor as blood seeped from his stomach, and one of his comrades dragged him back around the corner. The Hands strode forward, bullets deflecting off their armor and scoring holes in the rent walls, their rifles barking controlled, unflinching bursts.

One of Jose's displays went dark, and his head snapped back, a round penetrating his helmet's optics. He dropped to one knee again, firing a wild stream of rounds down the hallway and emptying his magazine. He released the rifle, letting it hang from his chest by its strap, and dragged out his sidearm. As it rose, he sighted another GDI soldier, and fired, the ruby-red laser beam striking him in the chest. His armor flashed and boiled, then fused as the man toppled to the floor, ash billowing from the wound.

After a couple of seconds of hunting for another target, Jose realized the enemy were all dead. He rose, holstering his sidearm and grabbing his rifle, reloading it, and fervently wished he still had his laser rifle and its much larger energy cell. Orders were orders, however, and they were already causing enough of a mess in the place without lighting the building on fire with energy weapons.

The Hands started up the hallway, taking the lead, while another fire team of assault troops moved up behind them. The elite Nod soldiers kept the corridors cleared while the assault teams broke off to breach and clear side offices and rooms. All throughout the building, other Hand units were following suit, taking this structure one hallway and room at a time.

Rounds ripped out of a door as Jose passed it, skipping off his armor, and he spun, hosing the door with a third of his rifle's magazine. Between his weapon and the GDI trooper on the other side, the door was reducing to kindling and flying shards, which broke down completely as another Hand kicked in the door. A shotgun blast staggered him, and then he was through, rifle blazing. Jose chased after his fellow Hand, sweeping the room beyond, and found a side office riddled with bullet holes and a couple of enemy corpses.

Jose glanced to the bodies of the infidels before moving back out into the hallway, hearing a flurry of gunfire echoing from a nearby room as the assault troops cleared it. Many of the GDI troops defending this place weren't wearing helmets, or even body armor; most, in fact, were wearing nondescript gray garrison uniforms. He suspected they were clearing out GDI's REMFs, which explained why they were advancing so quickly.

"Brother-Captain," a voice hissed over the comm, from Brother-Sergeant Brusca. "We have reached the primary objective. Standing by to breach."

"Copy," Jose replied, clearing an intersection and hurrying up the hall. "My team will be at our marker in fifteen seconds."

It was a generous estimate, as they arrived within twelve. The Hands and the assault fire team stacked up on the right side of a nondescript door, another assault team moving past to secure the other end of the corridor. Jose signaled to the next man behind him to prepare a breaching charge.

The disc-shaped explosive was set quickly, and Jose sent a flash-message to Brusca. A second later, he responded with another text message, confirming that they had a charge set on their end as well. Jose grabbed a flashbang off his belt, primed it, and sent the signal to breach the door.

There was light and noise and smoke and Jose's arm pumped. He immediately surged forth, rolling around the corner and sidestepping. He instantly felt a furious series of impacts along his chest armor as he rolled through the smoke, and then the flashbang detonated. His armor reacted instantly, visor darkening and helmet cutting off all audio input for a split-second. The eye-searing light and ear-popping sound filled the chamber, and when his vision returned, Jose saw several GDI troops recoiling, ears bleeding. Two of them were still standing, wearing helmets and body armor that protected them from the flash and noise, and were firing their rifles. Rapid-fire punches continued to hammer his chest as they shot the first target they could see.

One of the infidels twisted immediately, perforated by a dozen rounds as the other Hands stormed into the room. Jose sighted down his rifle, lining up his target in the iron sights and once more cursing the lack of his own laser rifle and its integrated helmet sights. He squeezed off two bursts at the other standing GDI trooper, hitting him in the chest and shoulder; one round managed to deflect off the plating and into the man's arm, and he spun around, rifle firing wildly into the ceiling.

Jose charged, firing another burst that shook the armored soldier, and then the Hand crashed into the man, shoulder-checking him into the desk at the far end of the large, circular room. As his foe slammed into the desk, the Hand shoved his rifle down into the infidel's throat and fired two single shots.

There were a few strangled screams and cries of agony around the room, which ended as the Black Hand executed the stunned or wounded infidels scattered around the chamber. Within moments, only the faithful remained standing, clad in heavy armor and with tattered, ripped capes dangling from their shoulders.

Jose looked around the bullet-riddled room, and exhaled. He reached up and pulled off his helmet, the pressure seals hissing, and cool air swept over his sweat-soaked face. He smiled.

"Brothers," he declared, standing in the middle of the legendary Oval Office. "We have taken the White House, in the name of Kane!"

The normally stoic Black Hand burst into thunderous cheers, men ripping off their helmets and pumping fists in the air. Jose laughed, raising a clenched hand high above him.

"Come!" he shouted, climbing up onto the very desk the Presidents of the United States had used. "Let us consecrate this place in His Name!"

"Peace!" the Hand shouted at once. "Unity! Brotherhood!"

"In the name of Kane!" Jose roared, standing tall and proud atop the desk. "Peace! Through! _Power!"_

* * *

A gentle wash of colored lights fell across the room as the doors slid open. He could hear the beeping and whirs and hissing fans of hundreds of computers filling the chamber, mixed in with the muted voices of technicians and officers. A dim red light suffused the room, mixing with the glow of consoles and holograms and the various important-looking bits of light on the myriad array of machines. The black-uniformed Brothers and Sisters moved around the room almost sedately, an illusion fostered by the low lighting.

Kane slid across the chamber, his cloak gathered close. His eyes moved across the various holographic displays, pausing at the one in the center of the chamber, a massive globe the size of a small house, showing the dozens of fronts that had opened up in the last few hours, spreading across the planet. A thousand conflict zones glittered on the planet's surface, and each one invited a smile on his features.

Officers slid past the Messiah as he looked over the display, stepping carefully in the dim lighting. The low illumination and red gleam were supposed to remind the Brotherhood that, for all their power and technology, they were an organization that thrived in the darkness and the shadows, both literally and figuratively.

In reality, Kane preferred the dim red light because people tended to stumble over things they couldn't see. It was small and trivial and definitely petty, but something the Messiah found endlessly amusing.

The war was progressing well, he noted, raising a hand to the holographic controls. Kane rotated the globe about, zooming in to specific battlefronts, observing regiments and divisions and army groups advancing. The data was updated in real-time by a small army of EVA units, receiving data directly from the battlefields and patching it together. A couple of his generals had raised concerns that transferring intelligence data directly from the field to Temple Prime itself would lead GDI's InOps agents to the center of Nod's command and control network, but Kane had dismissed their worries. He reminded them that it was their job to ensure that GDI would never be in a position to launch an attack on Temple Prime in the first place, and that even if they did locate their capital, they would have to fight through some of the most heavily-defended and inhospitable terrain on the planet to reach it.

Kane smirked as he remembered that explanation. In reality, the _last_ thing he was worried about was keeping Temple Prime's location a secret.

Casualties thus far had been high, he noted. Even the EVAs couldn't keep track of the losses on both sides, and the fog of war ensured that no number could really reflect reality, but they estimated Nod would have suffered at least a million casualties by the end of the first twenty-four hours of combat, with similar numbers of GDI military personnel, and several times more in civilian casualties. That number would multiply several times over in the event of a massed GDI counterattack.

Kane nodded as he ran the numbers in his head. They were more than acceptable.

"Your Eminence," came a call from across the command center, and Kane turned, seeing one of his tacticians standing by one of the hologram projectors.

"Yes?" he asked, noting the man's agitation, and started striding across the room, cloak billowing behind him. "What's happened?"

"We just received a priority report from the B-2 assault force, Strike Group Babylon," the tactician replied, and then hesitated. Kane drew closer, and the man hit a few keys on the projector's terminal. "General Holt is dead."

"Dead," Kane muttered, looking over the hologram a sit displayed casualty reports and images from the B-2 assault force's forward command center. Roaring pillars of flame and smoke arose from the heart of the array of prefabricated structures sitting just inside the Blue Zone walls, and repair and recovery drones were flitting about as engineering and rescue crews frantically tried to recover the wounded.

"That appears to be an artillery strike," Kane said with another frown. "GDI?"

"We backtracked the shell arc," the tactician said, shaking his head. "It came from one of our own Spectres."

Which meant that someone had captured one of their artillery pieces. No doubt they'd used the Spectre's communications array and sophisticated targeting equipment to backtrack the source of the Spectre's last orders, and from there backtrack to the command centers. From there, it would be easy to locate the source of the majority of outgoing and incoming data, which would have been Holt's CIC. Simple but effective.

An unfortunate consequence of Nod's superior command, coordination, and control abilities. Kane found the idea of GDI using their own methods against them a refreshing change of pace, as such adaptation was a long time in coming.

"Has this Spectre been recaptured?" Kane asked, and the tactician nodded.

"It was abandoned when the nearest units of Black Hand found it," he explained.

"Video feed," Kane demanded, and the officer complied, bringing up a recording from a helmet camera. The jerking and grainy footage showed a squad of Black Hand sweeping the area around one of the artillery platforms, its legs braces extended and cannon raised. All around it Kane saw the crumpled bodies of the artillery piece's security force, the two buggies that had been accompanying it ablaze. The Hands moved around the artillery emplacement, clearing and securing the area. After a moment, the camera's wearer moved around the Spectre, and stopped at something scrawled on the side.

"What is that?" Kane asked, pausing and magnifying the image. As soon as he realized what was written there, a slight smirk appeared on his face.

_Dear Kane: Merry Christmas!_

_Love, your buddy Havoc_

"Send a priority message to all our forces in B-2," Kane said, straightening. "An enemy commando is on the loose inside our lines. Take utmost precaution and care."

"Yes sir," the tactician replied, and moved away to issue the advisory. Kane turned and looked back toward the display, and chuckled.

"So, still fighting your misguided little war, Parker?" he mused. "Perhaps there are still elements of GDI worth something more than simple slaughter."

He frowned, and then reached out into the holographic display. He moved a series of symbols around in the interface, and a moment later, he was connected to the EVA command unit operating in B-2.

"Ow," he heard someone mutter behind him, accompanied by the impact of a shin on a console, and the Messiah's frown turned into a grin.

"EVA," he said quickly. "With General Holt dead, we need a new commander for this phase of the Eastern Seaboard invasion. Contact Commander Logan Rawne, and place him in command of the forces advancing into Washington D.C. He is to direct his entire force against the Pentagon. I want that decrepit symbol of GDI's rule _obliterated_."

* * *

Karrde heard someone enter the room behind him, and he glanced up, seeing a young corporal enter the room. Judging by his scuffed and battered armor and uniform, it had to be Colt, but he didn't immediately address the soldier, except to raise a finger to tell him to wait.

" . . . most of our troops are pinned down," General Jack Granger continued on the video screen. "Our A-SAT defenses are offline, and I have no goddamned idea who is running the show at GDI."

The video feed from the Pentagon was grainy, filled with static, and punctuated by constant explosions, shouting, and the insistent beeping of very self-important consoles. Nonetheless, Battle Commander Karrde could make out the General as he stalked through the Pentagon's CIC, and could hear his voice clearly enough, which was all that mattered.

The General wouldn't be calling him personally when things were this bad unless he had something important to say, so Karrde just kept his mouth shut instead of asking stupid questions. There was a flash offscreen, and Granger blinked, looking away from whatever had just happened. The glare faded, and he looked back toward the camera.

"This is no time to stand on protocol," he said. "The entire Northeastern Blue Zone has been overrun and we're taking the worst of it here in DC."

Karrde heard someone call to the general from offscreen, and Ganger turned. A moment later, through the static, Karrde caught sight of Lieutenant Telfair.

"General," she called as she got closer, her tone edged with that adrenaline-fueled anxiety one got during their first taste of real danger. "They're starting evac procedures."

"You go ahead, Sandra," Granger replied after a second's consideration. Karrde nodded as he spoke; he had a job to do.

"Sir, you can't stay here," she protested, and Granger's face tightened.

"That's an _order_, Lieutenant," he said, his voice once more resonating with authority. Sandra hesitated, glancing toward the screen where Karrde's face was doubtless displayed on her end, and nodded.

As she moved away, Ganger looked back to Karrde, his expression grim.

"Nod troops are closing in," he said. "You're the only man I can trust to protect the Pentagon. Kirce James at TheaterOps will bring you up to speed." He glanced away quickly, and then looked back.

"Its all on you now, Commander," Granger said. "I need you to take back this city." There was another flash from somewhere nearby - EMP charges, Karrde guessed, trying to fry their electronics - and Granger frowned, unperturbed, before cutting off the transmission.

Karrde glanced down to his Comcom, and pulled up maps of the airbase, before glancing back to Colt. The corporal stood nearby, anxious, judging by his posture. Karrde ran over his troops' positions, grunted, and began issuing orders with his left hand, tapping holographic controls.

"Corporal, we've been mauled a bit by this assault," he explained, glancing up. "Fourth Platoon, C, took some casualties. Half of their Bravo is wounded, and they lost their squad leader. The assistant squad leader is a green PFC straight out of boot. I don't have time to reconstitute the unit and they need a real NCO to take over until this pile of shit gets sorted out."

Colt blinked, uncertainty crossing his features.

"Sir?" he asked, surprised, and Karrde nodded.

"Not sure how you managed to survive close combat with Black Hand troopers," the Commander said, "but you kept control of your squad and fought off a numerically superior force of elite Nod infantry. And, if your helmet camera's footage is any indicator, you killed a Black Hand trooper in single combat. That's not insignificant.

"Bravo needs a squad leader, and yours is nonexistent," Karrde continued. "Its highly irregular to put a man in charge of a unit he doesn't know due to casualties, but I don't have time. You're in charge of Fourth's Bravo squad now."

"Commander, _I_ lost my _entire _squad," Colt said, incredulous. "I don't-"

"It wasn't your fault, corporal," Karrde replied. "Truth told, you did as well as any man could be expected to do in that situation. You have your orders. See to your squad."

Colt hesitated, and then nodded.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Dismissed."

Colt turned to leave, and Karrde watched the young soldier depart, frowning. There was potential in that one, he knew, and he brought up the feed from Colt's helmet camera once again. He moved through the combat recording, and then replayed the brief five seconds where two GDI soldiers turned, their perceptions and minds clouded by Nod hallucinogenic grenades, and began firing on their comrades. Almost immediately, their helmets exploded as Colt gunned them down.

That kind of quick-thinking, unhesitating practicality, decisiveness, and ruthlessness was all too rare. He would make a good squad leader, or officer, if he lived that long.

Karrde closed the file and got back to work; it would take some time to get the battalion gathered up, loaded onto the transports, and throw them into another hellhole.

* * *

Two attack motorcycles rolled around the corner of the street, their mounted sensors sweeping the area for life signs. After a few minutes, Corporal Kissan, the ranking member of the recon pair, cursed.

"I got nothing," he said over the radio, and glanced to Private Nigel as the other recon trooper scanned in the opposite direction. They both saw the fires, but neither of them paid anything more than a cursory glance toward them at the moment. They had much more to worry about, especially as the sun was going down.

"Negative here," he replied. Both men were on edge, because in their case, seeing nothing was almost as bad as seeing something. In this case, "nothing" meant no obvious threats, though both bikes' sensors were pinging with hundreds of human contacts in all directions. That was understandable, as they were invading a city, but at least they hadn't picked up any mines or traps.

"Eyes One, bring them up, all clear as far as we can tell," Kissan said, rolling up the street while Nigel stayed in position, fingers hovering over his bike's missile launchers. Kissan continued toward the fires in the middle of the street, a pair of destroyed Nod buggies in the middle of the road, corpses of friendly troops strewn about. Tangles of razor wire had at one point lined the street, but were now twisted by fire or blasted apart by explosives. The checkpoint they'd established was in ruins.

As Kissan scanned the area, he came up with only other human life signs. No active military-grade transmitters, no radar signatures, no scanners of any kind that would signify missile launchers - though someone could have simply turned them off.

Half a minute later, a truck loaded with Nod troops, followed by a Reckoner APC, trundled around the corner and rolled toward the checkpoint. The troops in the truck dismounted, a dozen Nod militia fanning out to secure the checkpoint. The Reckoner stood back, and its hatches opened, another squad emerging.

Down the street, Niles leaned back in his seat, and reached up to pull back his goggles. He rubbed his eyes, and lowered them back down to his face, and then looked up at his bike's screen.

He felt an impact in his chest, and his screen flashed a liquid red. It took Nigel a second to realize he was looking at his own blood, and then he toppled forward onto his controls, his fall arrested by a large hand gently easing his corpse down.

Behind the dead bike trooper, the street exploded as half a dozen rockets and grenades suddenly lanced out at the Nod militia. Of the two dozen soldiers, ten of them were killed or critically maimed instantly, shrapnel tearing them apart as the explosives tore into their bodies.

Kissan hadn't detected the scanners of enemy missiles, but that didn't mean there _weren't_ missiles out there. He revved up his motorcycle's engine, whipping it around and firing up his targeting display, trying to track where the missiles came from.

"Nigel, do you-" Kissan's words died in his lips as he saw Nigel slumped in his seat, and standing beside the bike, leveling a pistol his way-

The Nod biker was a hundred meters away, with a dozen Nod soldiers between him and the man by Nigel's bike. A normal soldier, straight out of boot on his first day, would _never_ have made that kind of shot with a pistol. Even an experienced target shooter might find it difficult.

But that was why they called him "Havoc."

Kissan's visor shattered, his head snapped back, and he toppled out of his motorcycle as the rest of the ambushed Nod militia found themselves under fire from multiple directions by a superior number of GDI troops.

The Reckoner's driver was frantically backing up as the rest of his comrades were dying, the APC trying to get out of the ambush zone, when a young Zone Security officer by the name of Blunt jumped on board, hauled himself through one of the open troop hatches, and shot the driver in the back, through his seat.

Two minutes after the ambush began, the last Nod trooper was dead.

As the GDI troops secured weapons and equipment from the dead Nod troopers, Emily Wong and her cameraman hurried into the street, getting as much recorded footage as they could. They caught Colonel Parker as he walked over to the second Nod bike, and stood over the driver, nodding to himself.

"What are we going to do with these?" Emily asked, and a very evil grin plastered itself across his face. He glanced up, hefting his pistol.

"Bad Things," he told Emily. "And make sure you remind 'em when you send this footage," he added, pointing to the dead Nod trooper's broken visor. "That was _left_-handed."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**I love writing Havoc. :D

No intel file for this chapter, sorry. Don't have anything to comment on at this point.

This chapter was obviously a bit more of plot progression and character development than it was outright violence and destruction. However, expect things to seriously heat up in the upcoming chapters. Its time for the Pentagon siege . . . .

With regards to Colt's scene with Karrde, I had some reservations about having him meet up with the battalion commander, as a soldier in that situation really should report to his company commander (as his platoon's lieutenant is dead - Magrabi took a tank shell to the face way back at the beginning of the story) but the company commander is in the field. That's why Colt spends a good chunk of his time sitting on the ammo box with nothing to do, because the rest of his company is out fighting. That and Karrde really is something of a micro-manager - it comes with being a Battle Commander :D

Until next chapter . . . .


	12. Chapter XI: Awe

_**Chapter Eleven: Awe**_

_"It didn't take long before I'd seen my fill of war. Unfortunately, war hasn't seen its fill of me."_

_- Major Jack Granger, at the end of the Firestorm Crisis, 2030 _

Nod had done a number on the aircraft at Langley, but though anything that had been on the runways had been quickly destroyed, the Nod troops hadn't touched most of the stored aircraft. That was a real blessing, and Karrde commandeered five of the parked Ox transports, while sending the ones he'd used to get here for refueling.

It took more than twenty minutes to scare up pilots for the V-35s, during which time they'd wheeled the big transport VTOLs out onto the tarmac and begun loading them up. Every able-bodied trooper from Fourth Battalion had been pulled off defense and brought to the loading zone, save for the wounded. Karrde left the injured - more than fifty soldiers, all told - at the base hospital.

Worse than that were the permanent losses: forty three men and women, the majority in Third Platoon, C Company. Close to twenty percent of the battalion was out of action, the rest were exhausted from prolonged combat, and they were about to plunge into an even nastier confrontation.

"So, what's the plan, sir?" asked Major Koen, as they stood on the tarmac, listening to the Oxen power up their engines. Other officers - platoon leaders, company commanders, staff NCOs, the vehicle commanders of B Company's heavies - stood with him. Karrde switched his Comcom to holographic display, and showed a map of the area around the Pentagon.

"Land here," he said, indicating a spot three kilometers south of the Pentagon. "This area is as close as we can get without risking being attacked by Nod AA. Intel says this corridor should be clear."

"Unless they've got stealth tanks," Captain Jorgensen said, and there were grunts and murmurs from the other officers.

"Stealth tanks, Venoms, rubber bands, whatever," Karrde replied, shrugging. "Best we've got. Land here, dismount the men and vehicles. B Company will lead the way, with scout spears from B's Pitbulls and troops from C. A, the rest of C, and D will bring up the rear."

"And when we get to the Pentagon?" Lieutenant Wallace said, towering over them. He'd raised the visor on his suit's optics array, and his face peered down at them, ensconced within walls of metal and ceramic plating.

"We dig in, assess the situation, and reinforce the troops there."

"Do we even know who's protecting the Pentagon now?" asked Koen, and Karrde nodded.

"Mixed forces," Karrde said. "A lot of troops have been falling back to rally around the Pentagon. We can expect maybe two, three thousand troops in the immediate area, plus the Pentagon's own security detail. We're trying to pull some troops in from across the Potomac to reinforce the area. There's still a lot of GDI forces in the area that haven't engaged and are still mobilizing.

"We will have air cover on the way in," Karrde continued. "The Marines have been bombing Nod's rear-echelon units here and at Hampton Roads for the last couple of hours, and we'll have Firehawks protecting us on approach."

"Enemy force composition?" asked one of the platoon leaders.

"Division-sized," Karrde replied, his words grim. "Minimum."

He looked around at his unit commanders, and agreed with the dark looks on their faces. This was going to be bloody.

* * *

The Oxen were being loaded, APCs and Pitbulls rolling up their ramps. The Predators and transport trucks had already been stowed, and troops were filing up the ramps as soon as they had restocked their supplies and replaced lost or expended pieces of kit. Many seemed worn out and exhausted, having already fought one battle, and didn't welcome the prospect of a second.

There wasn't any time for rest, Corporal Mitchell Colt thought as he jogged toward C Company's Ox. Beneath one of the wings, he spotted a man with lieutenant's bars, next to a quartet of young troopers.

"Corporal," Lieutenant Michels said, extending his hand. Colt shook it. He knew the platoon leader for Second Platoon, but not terribly well, so going under his command would be a slightly different experience than what he'd dealt with under Magrabi.

"This is Bravo, Second Platoon," Michels continued, gesturing toward the soldiers. Colt nodded, shaking hands with each of the recon troopers. They were all in their late teens or early twenties, none of them past Private First Class.

"I'll leave you to sort things out," Michels added, and then moved away to see to the rest of his platoon. Colt nodded toward the men.

"Got all of your kit?" he asked, and the young soldiers nodded. He wouldn't have asked that question if they weren't relatively green, but on the way over he'd checked their service records on his HUD. The longest-serving man was PFC Frank Russell, assistant squad leader and machinegunner. He was a lanky youth, twenty-one years old with two years' service. The rest were privates: Gutierrez, a heavyset, dark-skinned rifleman of obvious Hispanic descent, Lancaster, one of the squad's designated marksmen, a tall, pale-skinned man, and Penlan, a compact brown-haired woman with a GD3 rifle and integrated grenade launcher. The other designated marksman had lost his leg, and their late sergeant had been torn apart by a shredder emplacement.

"Okay, team arrangement," Colt said, gesturing. "Lancaster, you're with me, team one. Russell, you, Gutierrez, and Penlan are team two." Giving Russell the larger team would help solidify his confidence, and having the remaining marksman with Colt would put him in a better position to direct precision fire. "Squad freq?"

"One five four point three seven," Russell replied, and Colt dialed that into his helmet.

"Okay," Colt said, looking at each team member. "Bad news is, I'm your new squad leader, BC's orders. Good news is, I'm just as scared and clueless as you guys." That got some relived chuckles from the rest of the squad, and he'd established authority and some levity. Good.

"I'm not going to waste your time with some goddamned speech," he continued. "I'm a grunt, same as you, just too stupid to quit before getting a second stripe. Load up."

The squad nodded and moved out, gathering up their packs and moving toward the transport. As they settled into the troop bay, Colt couldn't help but notice that, unlike when they'd deployed that morning, there were a lot of seats open and empty.

As he strapped in, Colt wondered just how many more would be that way by the next morning.

* * *

The world inverted, the horizon rolling around him, and then the green and gray sky looming overhead swept up to fill the cockpit of Major Robert "Stormin'" Norman's aircraft. Vaguely, he could feel the gee forces pushing him back into his seat, but he'd logged enough flight hours that by now they were only a distant sensation at these speeds, no more notable than the fabric of his flight suit against his skin.

A flow of data spilled across his monitor, more information than a human could reasonably be asked to handle, pouring in through his high-end ASV-107 radar array. He had a solid view of more than a thousand aerial contacts across more than two hundred kilometers, but he filtered through them with a combination of practiced ease and the help of the other mind in his craft.

"Gabriel, status on those Oxen?" he asked as he came about in his holding pattern over Langley AFB. He checked his radar, spotting the transponder signals of the rest of Talon Squad, the seven other swept-wing Firehawk VTOL fighters running a lazy loop over the airbase.

_**"Sir, Ox transports are lifting now," **_came the reply in his helmet as his onboard EAA responded to the query instantly. The Electronic Aircraft Assistant was nowhere near as advanced or as capable as the EVA units used by the Army or the Marines, but then, they didn't need to be. EAAs were designed expressly for use with Firehawk fighter-bombers, working with EVA units to sort targeting data, telemetry, navigation, and radar contacts, as well as juggle the myriad onboard systems. Firehawk pilots learned to trust the EAAs they carried with their lives.

"Got them on radar," Norman said, nodding to himself. he brought his Firehawk around to spot the Ox transports, five large, bulky, ungainly craft whose name fit their speed and disposition well.

_**"Preparing course and navigation data now," **_Gabriel said. _**"Synching with EVA and Talon units."**_

EAAs were a bit different from EVAs. EVA units were never differentiated except by numerical designation, but individual Firehawk squads had custom-tailored EAA units assigned to their squad's fighters. Talon used an EAA Norman had dubbed Gabriel, and the exact similarity between all eight Talon fighters' low-grade AI units allowed for an almost hivemind-like coordination among his squad.

With near-parade-ground efficiency, Talon Squad came about, peeling off their holding patrols and forming up ahead of the Ox transports.

Norman eyed the navigational data on the head-up display of his cockpit, ran the math in his head as well, and grunted.

"Gabriel, get me a channel to the EVA unit on those Ox transports," he ordered. A second later, a confirmation message flashed onto his display. "Battle Commander, this is Talon One. We are on your wing, ready for escort."

_"Copy that, Talon One," _the Battle Commander replied. _"Glad to have you on board. Callsign is Lumber."_

"Copy that, Lumber," the Marine pilot replied. "Will we be attached to your command for the duration of this mission?"

_"Negative," _Karrde replied. _"I'd just get in the way. Just keep us in one piece, Major."_

Inside his helmet, Norman grinned. He already liked this guy. Not like some BCs who insisted on micromanaging everything.

"Copy that, Commander," he said. "Talon Squad, Alpha Flight has lead. Bravo, stick with the transports, we'll spearhead. Keep your radars high and watch for bogeys."

Norman gunned the engines on his Firehawk, three more of the sleek fighters moving out ahead of the formation to join him. They lanced out over the landscape, screaming north and hunting for prey.

* * *

Karrde sat at the front of the transport carrying B Company, engrossed in his Comcom's laser-optical display. He'd chosen the transport at random, and needed to be alone, not among the troops.

He'd patched directly into the data feed coming from the satellites. Though radio communications were still spotty due to Nod jamming, point-to-point laser transceivers and landlines were still functional, so he could get a rough image of his surroundings. That image wasn't pleasant.

GDI's 4th Armored Division, with elements of the 23rd Mechanized Infantry and 7th Armored were slowly being ground to pieces by the Nod advance to their west. They were giving as good as they took, and the urban terrain favored the defenders, but Nod had sheer numbers on their side, and had deployed a number of Avatar walkers that were proving brutally effective in urban terrain.

The 19th Infantry Division was doing their best to hold off the Nod forces scissoring in from Hampton Roads, while the 61st MEU was still deploying to flank the Nod amphibious forces flowing from the captured navy base. Division-strength Nod forces were also closing in from the northwest, eighty miles from the DC outskirts. The 12th and 42nd Armored, with support from 5th Artillery and 28th and 31st Mechanized Infantry were meeting them in the suburban and lightly-urbanized regions. Civilian death toll was estimated to be catastrophic.

Within the eastern DC area, there were still several brigade-strength forces mobilizing. Infrastructure damage from airstrikes and Nod insurgent forces had slowed the process down, but the 2nd Heavy Armor was en route, with 4th Artillery mobilizing as well. Two regiments of the 32nd Mechanized Infantry were trying to fight through some badly-broken urban landscape east of the Pentagon to link up with another regiment of the 14th Light Infantry that was already in place at the Pentagon itself.

That was about two thousand troops, with attached Pitbulls, Slingshots, and Guardians. The Pentagon Guards Battalion, a seven-hundred-man elite defense force christened by GDI to protect the command center, was also fully intact. He had a pair of companies from the 7th Armored in the area as well. There was a smattering of additional personnel, including a few hundred Zone Security officers, and a rapidly-mobilized battalion of the 7th Reserve Infantry. Total forces available to him around the Pentagon, including Fourth Battalion itself, came up to about four thousand troops, with about eighty Predators and a few hundred APCs, Pitbulls, and Slingshot batteries. An additional five thousand soldiers were on the way with a heavy armor division and artillery division behind them.

Karrde looked up, rubbing his eyes, momentarily disrupting the feed to his ocular nerves. He would need to arrange for air cover, though Granger would probably be up to his eyeballs with trying to arrange for the airbase at Langley to provide badly-needed air cover across the Zone. The 61st MEU was going to have its hands full providing air assets, not to mention the 4th Carrier Group, which was inbound off the Maryland coast. Langley itself was going to be a nightmarish quagmire of incoming and outgoing aircraft as every Firehawk, Hammerhead, and Orca came and went. He would have to get constant air cover over the Pentagon, and arranging that would be a challenge with everything that was going on now.

He looked back to the display, blinked a couple of times, and stared straight ahead to let the laser projector reacquire his eyes, and was about to go back to work when his radio chirped.

"_Lumber, this is Talon Lead," _called Major Norman. _"We're about to enter hostile airspace."_

"Copy that," Karrde replied, switching his Comcom to monitor data feeds from the Ox transports and the Talon's EAA, dubbed "Gabriel." He looked at the incoming radar data, and grimaced. "Hostile" was an understatement.

* * *

The rolling gray and green landscape of the urbanized Blue Zone slid beneath the transports and their escorting Firehawks as they shot over the landscape. In the dimming light of approaching evening Major Robert Norman could see smoke columns and the distant glows of firestorms in the war-ravaged sections of the city. For a moment, he was glad his wife and son in B-7 weren't in this, and then he wondered just how badly the rest of the world was doing.

The radar display was choked with countless aerial contacts, though most of the friendlies were south or westbound, heading for Langley of the _GDS Norfolk _off the Maryland coast, where they could land and refuel. The rest - and there were way too many, he knew - were hostile Nod aircraft.

Gabriel's voice sounded in Major Norman's ears, a warning tone.

_**"Contacts, forty-four kilometers out. Hostiles on intercept course."**_

Norman looked up at the HUD, watching the images resolving on his display. Gabriel cut out all extraneous data, highlighting a cluster of contact icons. Norman zoomed in, resolving the targets as a group of close to twenty small, light, narrow craft with bulbous engine pods on either side.

"Talons, contact ahead, forty-two kilometers and closing. Read eighteen Venoms, one-eight Venoms. Confirm."

_"Confirmed contact, eighteen Venoms," _Talon Five, Captain Hunter, replied. Norman hissed a curse as he keyed on his Firehawk's missiles.

Venoms. Nod's favored light attack interceptors. They were small, fast, cheap, and lightly-armed. They fit in somewhere between an attack helicopter and a fighter, able to pull close-air-support and anti-aircraft interception duties. Norman had no idea how Nod engineers had managed to make something so small yet so damned versatile, but he did know that where Nod had emphasized verisimilitude and compatibility - the Venom was virtually ubiquitous among Nod's air forces - they sacrificed performance. GDI's more specialized aircraft outperformed them in every way within their areas of expertise.

_Except cost,_ Norman thought grimly. For the same cost in tib-marks to field his squad of Firehawks, Nod could easily build six times as many Venoms.

The Nod fighter-helicopters in this group outnumbered his squad more than two to one.

"Alpha, bring up targets and prepare to engage," Norman ordered, pushing extra power to his engines as they moved to attack speed. "Bravo, cover those transports. Save your missiles for anything that gets past us. Copy?"

"_Copy, Lead," _Talon Five replied.

The Venoms were at twenty kilometers away now. Norman's radar was beeping insistently as the targeting systems worked up a lock. He saw bursts of dancing light, alternate radar contacts emerging from the Venoms on his high-resolution radar screen. They were deploying flares.

The beeping became a steady whine, and Norman gently pressed the firing button.

"Fox-Two!" he yelled, his words echoed over the comm by the rest of the Talons. Immediately, he switched targets, his aiming reticule falling over another Venom, which Gabriel helpfully highlighted. The EAAs were coordinating to make sure they all picked individual targets, so they wouldn't be firing missiles at the same threats. Ammo was limited enough as-is.

The Venoms were at twelve kilometers, and closing.

"Fox-two!" Norman repeated. Another missile leapt away from his Firehawk. "Break and engage!"

The Firehawks split up as the missiles streaked toward their targets. The first salvo lanced into the Venoms, claiming two of them, ripping apart the vulnerable engine pods and tearing through light armor with storms of tungsten-cored shrapnel; the other two missiles had been caught on flares and pulled off. The second salvo took another pair of Venoms out of the air, with the remaining pair shot out of the sky by the Venoms' turret guns mounted beneath their cockpits.

Norman slid aside, gunning his engines to full power to close fast. They were moving into furball range now, even though they were six kilometers out from the Venoms; the only weapons the little Nod craft carried were their cannons, but they had an astonishing range for direct-fire guns. What the Venoms lacked in long-range missile ability they made up for in dogfight capacity and ability to get in close.

A third volley of missiles raced out, this time from Bravo Flight. They screamed in on the Venoms as Alpha split apart and closed, and the missiles struck down three of the Nod aircraft as they spread apart to engage targets. That knocked the odds down to eleven to eight, Norman though grimly. The smoking hulks of shattered Venoms were scattering across the landscape below, inky smoke tracing their fuel sections. He off-handedly wished they had been engaging over non-urbanized terrain, though about ninety percent of this part of B-2 was urbanized in one way or another. The civilian damage was going to be nasty.

Then, ruby-red beams of light lanced through the air, dancing and tracing straight corridors of sheer heat all around him, and Norman immediately hauled back on the stick, choking back his speed for half a second and then slamming the engines at full power. He screamed up above the Venoms firing on him, throwing off their targeting, and started to descend even as they began to ascend to engage. He was pleased to note the rest of the flight was doing the same.

At this close range, he had to save his missiles. Gabriel had already switched fire control over to his cannons without needing to ask, but Norman had thumbed the fire selector reflexively anyway. He looped down toward the Venoms, now inside of four kilometers.

"Gabe, deploy spoofers. We're going in."

_**"Deploying now."**_

* * *

_**"Four contacts are breaking off to engage Alpha," **_Gabriel reported, his voice sounding in Captain Carrie Hunter's ear as she maneuvered Bravo Flight to intercept. _**"The remainder are heading for us." **_That left seven hostile Venoms closing on the Ox transports. On the radar, they were closing at high speed, much too quickly for them to pull off a second radar lock before their cannons would open up. She had barely a couple of seconds before furball range.

"Bravo, move to intercept," she ordered over the radio, pushing her engines. "Lumber group, evade!"

_"Copy that," _replied the unnervingly calm voice of the Air Force pilot in charge of the Ox transports, and the aircraft began to split apart just as blood-red bolts lanced in at the Firehawks. Hunter felt potent gee forces shoving her back into her seat as she shot toward the Venoms, locking onto a target. She rolled up on one wing, pulling out of the line of fire of one of the Venoms, red beams tracing her flight path as she shot up and to the left.

Her helmet sang with a good radar lock, and she loosed two missiles in rapid succession at the same Venom. She wasn't taking any chances. They dropped away from her Firehawk's hardpoints, accelerated toward the Nod fighter, and detonated before the pilot even had time to realize he was being shot at. The Venom emerged from the clouds of fire and shrapnel seemingly intact, but then its wings and engine pod disintegrated, and it began a long, smoking tumble to the ground below.

_**"Two Venoms, heading for the transports," **_Gabriel reported.

"Dammit," Hunter hissed, rolling around. On the radar, two of the Venoms had slipped past them and were bearing down on the V-35s. She keyed her comm as she brought up her last missile, working on a lock.

"Six, on me!" she shouted to her wingmate. "Lumber, you've got two Venoms closing on you!" she yelled. "Evade! Say again, evade!"

* * *

The troop bay of A Company's Ox was filled with warning alarms. Captain Jorgensen was standing, yelling as loud as he could.

"Brace!" a shouted, one hand on his headset, his voice barely audible over the alarms. "Incoming fi-"

His words were cut off as scarlet beams sliced through the troop bay, one of them striking him in the torso and vaporizing the upper half of his body. A dozen more troopers were sliced apart or blasted into exploding clouds of steam as the beams lanced through the bay.

Corporal Emily Welkan, less than three meters from the flash-fried body of her captain, lowered her head as the laser sliced up the bay. The Ox shuddered as a chunk of hull plating was torn away, exposing the bay to open air. An entire rifle squad was sucked out the opening, the roar of air hammering her ears as she clutched her chair restraints, shaking in stark terror. The troop bay was filled with shouts and screaming, and another storm of laser beams punched through the bay, melting holes and vaporizing more troops.

Welkan heard cursing all the way across the bay, and saw Lieutenant Wallace's Zone Troopers, locking into their armor and restraints at the far end of the bay. One of the armored soldiers had fallen to the deck, the left half of his armor glowing and molten from a passing laser beam. Wallace detached from the wall and knelt next to his man in the chaos, and then the transport buck again. The Zone Trooper was hurled back across the bay to slam into a wall.

Another laser beam cut through the room, and the soldier across from Welkan exploded before he'd had a chance to scream, molten body armor and kit flying about as flash-fried flesh steamed up into the bay, mixing with smoke.

This was the worst possible nightmare an infantryman could ask for: to be trapped on a transport, helpless as the enemy shot at them, unable to return fire or even take cover. They could only hold on and pray.

* * *

The Venoms swooped toward the first Ox they could reach, raking it with laser fire. Hunter could see the troop bay and engine sections burning as lasers perforated the transport, and then the blessed wail of a solid missile lock filled her helmet.

At the same time, both Hunter and her wingman, Lieutenant Denmark, fired their missiles. The Venoms almost instantly broke off, diving in opposite directions, flares flying out of pods on their bellies. One missile was touched off, exploding harmlessly, while the other dove through the flares and shredded the rear half of the Venom. It tumbled out of control and plowed into a highway bridge below, shattering on impact.

"Six, watch my back," Hunter hissed, diving after the Venom, which had begun to climb again. It looped around, trying to get a shot at a different transport. She cut speed as she pursued the Nod fighter, knowing she'd need to get in close behind it for a cannon kill, now that her missile supply was exhausted. That required more maneuverability than speed, with the Venom moving among the V-35s.

The Oxen were spreading apart, trying to escape the nimble Nod aircraft, but it was right on top of them, flying directly over one transport and firing its cannon. Laser beams cut down, winging one of its engine sections, and smoke billowed out of the wound. The Venom dropped down on the opposite side, putting the transport between itself and Hunter.

She snarled, ascending to get a clear shot at the Venom. The Nod fighters' cannons had near-perfect 360 degree horizontal firing arcs, and 180 degree vertical arcs straight down. Getting beneath one was asking for trouble, but they were helpless if a pilot could get above them. Hunter reached the apex of her loop and dove, spotting the Venom as it dropped beneath another transport.

_"Five, evade!" _Six yelled. _"Venom, on your tail!"_

Hunter spotted the fighter closing in on her, and was about to dodge out of the way, before spotting the Venom she was pursuing, sliding into attack position on the first wounded transport. In a couple of seconds it would finish the job, killing more troopers or destroying the entire Ox wholesale, wiping out the entire company.

Talon Five leveled out, and Captain Carrie Hunter triggered her cannons. The Venom was struck dead center, both engine sections punctured by a hundred 20mm rounds. Fuel ignited, fire erupted along its length, and it began to spin out of control, descending toward the landscape below in a hard fall.

An instant later, the rear half of Talon Five blew apart as the Venom behind her opened fire. Laser beams sliced through the skin of her jet like tinfoil, one of the wings severed cleanly by enemy fire. Hunter hit the eject button even as she herd Six's scream of rage and anger, and as the canopy blew off, a laser beam sliced through it. She saw white light, felt an instant of heat, then-

* * *

Talon Three, Lieutenant Eugene Barclay, pursued his Venom as it looped around the edge of the battlezone. He knew that its entire purpose was to draw him away from the transports, to keep him busy while they shot up the helpless ground-pounders. He also knew that it was his job to end this one's diversionary tactics as quickly as possible; he couldn't simply let it go, as the Venom would flip around onto his tail in a heartbeat if he let it.

He had a missile lock, but the Venom was deploying flares. Missiles were in short supply now, and he knew he had to make this one count, so he waited as the flares hurtled about, fouling his radar as the Venom tried to juke and buck his pursuit. Barclay's Firehawk was too agile for that, though; the Venom had engagement speed, cannon range, and turning radius on him, but he could bank and maneuver much more easily.

The Venom suddenly descended, and Barclay hesitated before diving after it. That was odd; why would the Venom try to drop? Being beneath its opponent put the target out of its cannon's firing arc. Combat with Venoms was usually a game of trying to get above the opponent, either to get out of line of fire or to acquire a proper field of fire with the cannon.

Barclay pursued, and the Venom leveled out, still trickling flares. The moment it ran out, Barclay intended to fire his missile and finish this. The last flare emerged and dropped, and he had a good missile lock-

The Venom cut speed and rolled up on one of its engine pods for an instant, and Barclay suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of the laser cannon. He immediately hauled back in his stick, hissing a terrified curse.

The Firehawk shook violently, throwing Barclay against the side of his cockpit, and alarms sounded. His Gabriel flashed warnings: right wing destroyed, right engine damaged, fires in fuel compartment two.

Talon Three hit his eject button just as the Firehawk exploded, flames rushing out and burning through the lower half of Lieutenant Eugene Barlcay's body even as it was hurled from the disintegrating wreck of his Hawk. He barely had time to recognize the numb cold creeping up from his legs before he began to descend, his chute failing to open, and then the buildings below were rushing up toward him,_ far_ too quickly.

* * *

_"Five is down, repeat, Five is down!"_

_"Three is hit! No chute! I see no chute!"_

Talon One noted these calls on the radio in the back of his head, but couldn't let them distract him from the deadly concentration of the moment. Ahead, the Nod Venom was ascending, trying to get above him, and he kept on its tail, far enough back that it couldn't pull one of those ultra-tight turns the damn things were known for. At this distance, though, his cannons were a lot less accurate, and he had to conserve ammunition. One clean burst was all he needed . . . .

The Nod craft suddenly dove and rolled up on its engine pods, banking to give its cannon a better shot at the pursuing Firehawk. Norman rolled with it, banking harder and keeping "above" its airframe. The Venom couldn't execute a perfect roll, as the engine pods were actually miniaturized versions of the older turbofan arrays used on the Orcas back in the First and Second Tiberium Wars, and thus thrust straight down. Rolling onto its back would result in the Venom taking a speedy, messy nosedive straight into the ground.

That was the Firehawk's one big advantage in a dogfight. Norman knew how to stay above a Venom and could predict nearly all of their tricks. He kept right behind and relatively over the fighter so its rotary cannon couldn't target him, and squeezed off a single quick burst. The left engine pod was torn apart, belching smoke and fire, and the Venom began a wild, spiraling spin into the streets below, shattering on impact with the reflective pavement.

_**"Sir, additional hostile contacts, closing in," **_Gabriel reported.

"Lumber, recommend you go to ground," Norman called over the radio as he came about. "Additional hostile contacts inbound at -" his eyes flicked to his radar "- fifty-two klicks and closing. Count at least fifteen additional Venoms."

_"Copy," _the Battle Commander's terse reply came, and a few moments later, the Ox transports started to descend. Lumber Two, the transport that had taken the worst hits, was already dropping before the transmission had went out, and Norman belatedly realized that Karrde was taking his transports down before he'd even been advised to.

Norman looked over his radar again, to see that the Talons had finished mopping up the last of the Venoms in their area, with Talon Six pursuing one remaining Venom. He heard a roar of hatred and fury over the comm as Denmark shot down his target.

"Squad, status," Norman demanded, looking over his HUD. Six of the eight Talons were still flying, though Hunter and Barclay were gone. He had neither chute beacons or emergency transponders from either of them. "Anyone see Three or Five?"

_"Negative on Three," _Two came back. _"He ejected, but there was no chute." _Which meant there was not going to be enough of Barclay left to save.

"Five?"

_"They got her cockpit," _Denmark replied, his voice distorted by his radio. Pain still strained through the static. _"No chute. No ejection."_

"Missile check," Norman ordered, pushing back the pain of those losses and replacing them with anger. Carrie had been with him since flight school, and Barclay had been a good pilot and a great drinker. He had a fiancé. _Goddammit._

A moment later, his Gabriel displayed missile data pinged from the other fighters. Between his six Firehawks, they had seven missiles remaining. Most of them had seventy-five percent cannon ammunition or more remaining. It would have to do.

"Four, Six, pair up," Norman ordered, as he came about toward the approaching Venoms, now forty klicks away. "Talons, pick your targets and move to attack speed."

He didn't need to say anything else, and brought up his targeting reticule, picking out his first victim. One missile left. Stormin' Norman would make this count, he promised himself, focusing his anger into his controls and his display.

* * *

Lumber Two, callsign for the Ox transport that was carrying A Company, was dropping toward a small park, smoke and fire billowing from its ruptured compartments. It settled down on the grass, and the ramps immediately slammed down into the dirt, with GDI troops hurrying down to blessed solid ground. They fanned out, securing the LZ as the rest of the transports began to descend as well.

Corporal Colt and his below-strength squad hurried down the ramps of their transport and moved toward the perimeter, before a call went up over the platoon radio for assistance at A Company's transport. He immediately answered and sent his squad over to the ravaged V-35, where medics and engineers were already congregating. Infantrymen and armored Zone Troopers were carrying out the dead and wounded, and Bravo plunged into the smoky, hellish interior to assist.

He heard moans and cries inside the hazy troop bay, and switched his visor to thermal display to help see through the smoke. As he pushed through the area, looking for survivors, he heard groan close by. A set of seats had been torn free, and two dead soldiers and their chairs lay atop a third man.

"Help me move this," he ordered. "Medic!" Bravo lifted the chairs and bodies off the injured man, whose legs had been broken in the wild descent. A medic hurried over, deploying a fold-up stretcher, and Colt and Gutierrez helped move the wounded man onto the device, then carried it outside.

Bodies and survivors were being lined up on opposite sides of the transport. A platoon-sized force of medics, troopers, and support personnel were attending the latter; a small detail was collecting dog tags, personal effects, and equipment from the former.

As the troops piled out, they could hear the scream of engines overhead, and see in the growing twilight the flashes of explosions rippling through the darkening sky as the fliers tore into each other far above them.

* * *

"Acquiring target," Norman breathed, more out of a need to say something than necessity. He heard his missile targeting software beeping furiously as it tried to dance through the conflicting signals of the Venoms' river of heat flares and ECM suites. The line of Venoms were thirty-five klicks away now. He guessed that if they could take out a Venom with each missile, that would leave enough that the Talons would have a reasonable chance of killing the remainder with their cannons without suffering more then fifty percent losses among their remainder.

With that grim, clinical thought in mind, Norman continued fighting for a missile lock. Then Gabriel spoke in his ear again.

_**"Sir, incoming contacts to the southwest. Detecting radar pings and attempted missile locks."**_

"The hell?" Norman breathed, pulling his radar up onto his HUD and picking out the targets highlighted. For half a second, he thought they were more Venoms - they had the same radar profile and form, though off slightly, but more importantly, their IFF codes were _friendly_-

_**"Sir, receiving piggyback telemetry requests off our radar signals," **_Gabriel piped in and Norman blinked. Who was-

"Granted," the Major said, before Gabriel could clarify who the request was from.

_**"Detecting multiple missile launches," **_Gabriel replied almost immediately. By now, Norman had recognized the radar signature and IFF codes of the newcomers, and his heart skipped a beat. Belatedly, he realized that the rest of his squad was firing their missiles, and the wail of a good missile lock was in his ears. He triggered his own last remaining missile, and peeled up.

Incoming missiles came at the Nod fliers from multiple directions. Several of the incoming shots veered off due to flares and ECM, but between the storm of projectiles from the newcomers and the Talon's air-to-air missiles, eleven of the Nod fighters were torn apart. As Norman came down in a steep descent, the Talons at his back and opening fire on the disoriented Venoms with their cannons, he keyed open a comm link with the newcomers.

"Whoever you guys are, I owe you a goddamned distillery!" he shouted, even as he and Talon Two tore apart a venom with a protected cannon burst.

_"Skull Squadron will hold you to that," _replied Major Victor Hagen over the radio, as his much slower but vastly welcome squad of seven Orcas shot over the battlefield. _"But you Marines never get paid for shit anyway."_

The last of the Venoms was going down under the Talons' vengeful cannon fire, and the Firehawks came about to face the newly arrived Orcas.

"I'll take out a loan if I have to, Major," Norman replied.

_"Skull Squadron on station and providing close air support," _Hagen added as his VTOL gunships slid into place around the ground-pounders' LZ.

"Copy that, going in for resupply," Norman said, and Gabriel immediately brought up a navigation course to Langley. "Hold down the fort for us, will you?"

_"Will do. Skull Lead, out."_

Major Robert Norman checked the rest of his squad's status on his HUD as he flew back to the south, and noted the two missing spots in his roster with more than a passing feeling of loss. He was silent for a long while, promising himself he'd remember Hunter and Barclay when his pilots and the Skulls would have their drinks.

Norman shook his head, checked his course, and settled back into his seat. He still had a war to fight, and it wasn't over by a long shot.

* * *

There were twenty-two dead, all A Company troops.

"How many wounded?' Karrde asked as the recon troopers carried the last of the bodies off the transport. The smoke and fire had died down, the pilots turning off their engines and the Ox's maintenance team furiously working over the machinery as the battalion circled around the LZ.

"Seventeen," replied Sergeant Major Garibaldi, who had been Jorgensen's XO for A Company. "Mostly shrapnel, but I've got a few burns and amputations."

"Can they be transported?" Karrde asked, frowning as he looked over the line of wounded men and women, being checked by the medics. One of the Zone Troopers was being cut out of his armor, the armored plating and molten machinery having fused to his skin. He was screaming in agony as the medics and two engineers worked to free him.

Karrde's question had been directed at a man in camo fatigues like the rest of the troopers, but with a small patch showing a cross on his shoulder. The battalion's medic, Sergeant Grissom, looked up from a savage laser burn across one man's chest.

"For the most part, though I wouldn't recommend it," he replied.

"Can they survive transit?" Karrde asked, and Grissom frowned, looking around. He shrugged.

"Most of them," he replied. "The wounds are either cauterized amputations, burns, and shrapnel, but a couple of these men I'd be hesitant to."

Karrde looked over the four hundred-odd soldiers remaining under his command, and considered his options. He had a mission, a critical one, but his troops . . . .

The troops were his lifeblood. His duty was to them, but their duty was to fight - and die - as needed.

"Load the wounded up onto the APCs once they've been stabilized," he ordered. "_All_ of them." He didn't add the exceedingly grim fact that, with their losses, there would be plenty of room on the battalion's motor pool to carry the injured. He peered out into the night, at the orange glows visible in the gaps between buildings, and knew those were not the healthy lights of a living city, but the harsh illumination of one that was being slowly killed by war.

"As soon as they're loaded, we move out, fast as we can, for the Pentagon," he added.

"What about the V-35s?" Koen asked.

"We can't baby-sit them," Karrde replied. "The Skulls will escort them back. Tell Lumber Two that if they can't get theirs airborne again, they may have to leave it. We move as soon as the wounded are aboard."

"Aye, sir," Koen replied, and moved off, as Karrde walked around the transports and looked o the north. he could see fires glowing in the general direction of the Pentagon.

They didn't have much time, and even if they did get to the Pentagon, he had to ask himself . . . . what good could he do there? Against this much firepower, what good were any of them?

* * *

**_Tiberium-based Economics in the Mid-21st Century - A Beginner's Guide_**

_International markets in the extreme late 20th century adapted at a spectacular pace to the arrival of Tiberium. Within several years of its arrival, trade in Tiberium-derived materials became practically equivilant to the international stock market in terms of sheer importance, and soon eclipsed the stock market as the primary form of international trade. This latter development was a direct result of the First Tiberium War, which resulted in the value of raw warmaking materials exceeding the trade in stock shares in international corporations in terms of importance._

_As national governments suffered a cataclysmic breakdown in the early 21st century, international trade also suffered as monetary systems failed. With most of the political, social, and economic power on the globe falling into the hands of military organizations such as GDI, Nod, and various smaller warlords and militias, Tiberium's importance as a trade medium grew even more dramatically. Over the course of several years prior to the Second Tiberium War, a rough form of global currency, dubbed the "Tiberium mark" or "tib-mark" for short, was gradually implemented, replacing the American dollar. Tiberium was judged to be a relatively stable material to base currency on, as its value remained almost constant, even while evolving. This resulted in control of Tiberium deposits post-TW2 being not only a valuable strategic goal as a source of raw materials and energy, but also as an economic goal. _

_Global Defense Initiative analysts believe that the rapid growth in the Tiberium market was partially due to efforts by agents of the Brotherhood of Nod to build the economies of poor nations to exploit Tiberium. However, government officials firmly deny theories - mainly espoused by Nod sympathizers and analysts in Nod-controlled territory - that Kane had taken steps to prepare the nations that would fund and support Nod in the_ expectation _of the arrival of Tiberium . . . ._

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** One of the greatest joys I've discovered while writing is the moment where the very story you're writing takes off on its own and flies in a direction you didn't expect it to go in. In this case, I was not expecting to go into this chapter writing an air battle, but the story itself had other ideas.

Next chapter, expect the Pentagon siege to get underway.

Until next chapter . . . .


	13. Chapter XII: Dusk

_**Chapter Twelve: Dusk**_

_"At the time, we held it in the palms of our hands: victory. GDI vanquished. Our Brothers free of oppression. The planet _ours_, after fifty years of merciless war. It was _glorious_."_

_- Anonymous Nod soldier, discussing the Siege of the Pentagon_

Smoke clouds bloomed overhead, chasing flares of light. Ripples passed through the choking, billowing columns, testifying to where cloaked bombers had been moments before. Streams of tracer fire scratched across the sky as gun batteries struck at the Vertigo bombers. Every few minutes there was a tremendous surge of fire and a dull rumbling explosion further to the west, signs of the raging battle being fought by the remnants of three GDI divisions being mauled to pieces up and down the boundaries of the Zone.

Four Pitbulls and four Guardians from B Company were in the lead, the scout vehicles' sensor arrays sweeping the approaches for possible ambushes or incoming aircraft. UAVs circled overhead, scouting for threats. Further back rolled the rest of the Pitbulls, with the APCs and transport trucks traveling with them. The battalion's trio of ambulance transports, six-wheeled APCs like the armed Guardians, were in the middle of the formation, along with three other Guardians that had been repurposed for transporting wounded. The Predators rolled at the head of the column. Four Slingshot batteries, on loan from the Marines and crewed by leathernecks, were scattered along the line of vehicles. Troops stood wary at the gun ports or in the backs of the transport trucks, scanning their surroundings for threats that the sensor packages couldn't pick up. Many kept looking north toward the distant battle raging in the darkness.

Battle Commander Karrde viewed that battle zone with a mounting sense of dread. He'd soon be putting his exhausted battalion against an army that had smashed an entire armored division and two supporting infantry divisions. He knew, even without having to look at the numbers, that many of the men and women he was commanding wouldn't be walking out of this one.

How many dead to complete his mission, he wondered? He'd never had a large-scale battlefield command like this. Battalion and regimental-sized forces, usually tasked with eliminating outposts or small bases, were his experience. Never a multi-thousands-man force against a massive enemy incursion. He wasn't sure if he could do this.

And if he wasn't, Karrde thought grimly, he would condemn all of these men and women to their deaths.

* * *

Smoke clouds bloomed overhead, chasing flares of light. Ripples passed through the choking, billowing columns, testifying to where cloaked bombers had been moments before. Streams of tracer fire scratched across the sky as gun batteries struck at the Vertigo bombers. Every few minutes there was a tremendous surge of fire and dull rumbling explosion further to the east, signs of the raging battle being fought by the unstoppable onslaught of Nod's armies as they crushed three infidel divisions under their might.

Battle Commander Logan Rawne looked over his army as it advanced, seeing a thousand individual units highlighted on his holographic radar. It was rare indeed to see Nod advance in such numbers, with such _power_. The direct frontal assault, the smashing, relentless crush of man and armor and aircraft was GDI's hallmark. To drive the enemy before him using his own tactics, to see them fleeing in terror, was something he's only ever dreamed of.

The Pentagon was ahead, he knew. Kane himself had chosen the insurgent commander to replace General Holt now that he had died, which meant he now led a combined division-strength assault force. GDI was falling back, their remnants constricting together in a tightly-bound wall of defense as they formed up around their command center. Breaking that would be bloody and brutal and costly, but that was what war was, after all.

Rawne looked upon his target, his army, and the defenders falling back before him, and smiled. Victory was in his grasp, and the triumph of Nod would not be denied.

* * *

Colonel Reginald Franklin stood on the rooftop of the Pentagon, beside a pair of snipers that looked out over the western approach to the building, and frowned. He scanned the horizon with his binoculars, and checked the data feeds from the UAVs he had circling the perimeter, and everything he saw worsened his mood.

The Pentagon Guards Battalion had mobilized the instant General Granger had sent out the general alert order, and had established a secure perimeter around the building.

Pre-arranged gun emplacements had been set up all along the walls, interspersed between the automated railgun towers manning the perimeter. His men had deployed in good order, and the few APCs he had available that weren't being used for staff evacuation had been scattered along the gates, the most likely points for attempted entry. His Slingshots were constantly in motion, hunting for Vertigo bombers and loosing rivers of tungsten-cored shells whenever they did. That was the good news.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon was huge, and he only had seven hundred and fifty men to secure the grounds. That was sufficient to patrol the area and guard the roads during peacetime, but barely enough to man all the guard towers and the long, ten-foot-high concrete walls that were set two hundred meters out from the main building itself. To make matters worse, he had to pull some of his troops off to escort the evacuation convoys rolling to the east.

Franklin's troops had good lines of sight to their north and in all directions out to three hundred meters past the gates and walls. However, to their direct west were a series of apartment complexes that had been built far too close for his liking. He'd repeatedly made complaints about the cover they offered any potential attackers, but Franklin's requests to clear the line of sight were repeatedly rebuffed by city officials.

To the south, though, was the worst threat to his perimeter: the power plants. The guard towers lining their perimeter were externally powered by a small, dedicated complex of military-grade generator plants only a few hundred meters south of the Pentagon itself. Franklin had wanted them to be internally powered, but the Pentagon's own power plant was running full-tilt just keeping the building itself operational. The best he could hope for was an external power complex, which sat outside the main walls of the compound.

That was his weak link. He didn't have any towers to protect that section of the Pentagon grounds; the requests Franklin had made to erect railguns and anti-armor cannons had been tied up in red tape for months, and he suspected they had been ignored because of the spending cutback.

_No chance of a cutback lasting long now, _he mused. Too bad he probably wouldn't get a chance to take advantage of it.

Franklin headed back down to the ground level, circling amongst his men as he did so, checking their positions and emplacements In the gloom, it was hard to see his troops, as every man and women wore black fatigues with ash-gray armor, helmets, and webbing. These uniforms, at least, were one thing he did have in good supply; it apparently made the Pentagon staffers happy to see their security wearing differing uniforms from regular infantry.

"B Company, any change?" Franklin asked as he walked south, eyeing the dangerously exposed power plants. He's sent B Company to secure them, along with their section of the wall. That left A to their west, C to their north, and D to their east. E had been given escort duty, and most of that company was already gone with the first three waves of evacuees.

The last platoon was loading up into their Pitbulls, while the remaining staffers, all relatively low-level officers and workers, were boarding the transport trucks. Franklin walked toward the line of heavy transport vehicles and busses, watching as his men herded the non-coms and POGs onto the trucks.

"Grant, are they loaded?" Franklin asked the lieutenant in command of the escort platoon, standing by the Pitbull that would be leading the convoy. The young officer, a slender man with a shaven head, his helmet tucked under his armpit as he directed his men, nodded.

"Yes, sir, all loaded, just finishing up now."

"You know where you're headed, right?" the colonel asked, and Grant nodded again.

"Maps uploaded," he replied. "We're about to roll out now, sir."

"Good," Franklin said, patting the young, nervous platoon commander on the shoulder. E Company were the new recruits into the battalion, typically the least experienced and largely straight out of boot save for the NCOs. They usually had high marks - one had to be good to get on the Pentagon Guards - but the kid was scared. Probably another four-year trooper who joined for the tuition benefits.

"Don't worry, son," Franklin added. "They're in good hands."

"Yes, sir," Grant said, straightening, morale raised a bit. "We're just waiting on-"

They head footsteps behind them, and turned in time to see a black-haired woman with Lieutenant's bars hurrying toward them, a briefcase n hand and with two Guards running alongside her as bodyguards. The woman, whose tag identified her as a Lieutenant Telfair, hurried past Grant and onto one of the trucks.

Franklin knew who she was and what she was carrying; after all, the personal intelligence aide to a general wasn't easily missed, and only someone like that would be trusted with sensitive intelligence documents. As Telfair boarded the truck and the remaining troops clambered on board, Franklin hammered the side of the vehicle, a gesture of luck, and Grant nodded back.

The colonel moved back toward the perimeter as the trucks started to roll out the southeast gate of the Pentagon, carrying the last nonessential personnel away from the juggernaut that was bearing down on them.

* * *

His spotters were in position. GDI claimed to have good scout units, but Rawne knew and understood just how superior his own recon cadre was. GDI scouts were trained in formal schools, while his men were born and raised in Yellow Zones, bred to survive in the harshest landscapes and hunt in the urban wilderness. Readily available first-hand experience beat out any schooling, in his opinion. His scouts had slipped in among the civilian population ahead of the main advance, and provided up-to-the minute intelligence with point-to-point laser transceivers bouncing off airborne drones.

As Rawne sat in his command center, one of the seven recon teams he had covering the Pentagon reported another convoy escaping from the grounds. He knew that others had been fleeing the area over the last hours, but this was the first one he'd get a chance to stop. The staff officers no doubt being transported would be a wealth of intelligence, and even if they didn't recover any, they'd deny GDI critical aides and experienced specialists.

A quick check showed he had only a few units in the area, but those units would be all he'd need. A single lance of scout bikes, a flight of Venoms, and most importantly of all, two platoons of vanguard troops, with a couple squads of attached Black Hand supplementing them.

Rawne grinned and sent the order, his first strike against that bastion of oppression that was GDI's headquarters.

* * *

"Top, Oracle Three," Franklin's radio murmured, and the colonel pressed a finger to his ear.

"Oracle, Top," he replied as he walked up the line of defenses.

"Figures on rooftops seven hundred meters out. I think they're enemy spotters. Possible rangefinding and scanning equipment present. Clear to engage?"

"Cleared, Oracle," Franklin replied, and a couple of seconds later a rolling boom echoed from the top of the Pentagon as the sniper fired.

"Top, spotter eliminated," Oracle Three said after a second.

"Good work," Franklin said, and brought up the battalion radio frequencies. He picked out the rest of his sniper teams' callsigns.

"Oracles, you have clearance to engage any Nod advance units you encounter. This includes potential spotters. You see observers or observation gear, you take it out."

He heard a chorus of acknowledgements, and a second later a question.

"Top, Oracle Five," one of the snipers said, "What about civilians?"

"Any civilian pointing recording equipment at us isn't a civilian," Franklin replied, blunt and direct. "Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Spotter sighted," Oracle Two piped up. "Stand by." A couple of seconds later, another dull boom sounded from atop the Pentagon.

"That's a kill," Oracle Two's spotter confirmed. Franklin nodded as he moved across the lawn between the main building and the perimeter.

"Keep an eye out," he ordered. "Nod probably has more-"

One of the emplaced guns disappeared in a cloud of dust and blood, and Franklin was hurled off his feet by the shockwave. A momentary wave of dizzy deafness swept over him, and as he struggled to his feet, the colonel could feel the rumble of more impacts all around the perimeter, hurling men and debris through the air.

"Artillery!" he yelled. "Cover!" Two more Pentagon Guards were vaporized as he dove behind one of the bunkers lining the perimeter.

"Mortars, do you have position?" he yelled over the radio.

"Triangulating now," replied an officer, whose voice he couldn't identify. "Based on range and radar signature, they're about four kilos out. On the overpass."

"Balls," hissed Franklin. Nod had gotten artillery in that close already?

"Address them," Franklin ordered, and as he received an acknowledgement, the colonel keyed his frequency to the armored forces, the remnants of the 7th armored.

"Howell, do you-"

"_Contact, Scorpions," _repliedMajor Howell, CO of the to armored companies that had stationed themselves outside the Pentagon, her voice cool and crisp. _"Grid four four seven. Estimate company strength." _A rumble sounded over the radio, followed by the clatter of a Predator autoloader. _"I'm engaging."_

"Fall back if it gets too dicey," Franklin ordered. "I'm willing to sacrifice ground for time."

"_Acknowledged, sir," _Howell said, and her tank thundered again. _"We should be able to hold them for a while at this range. Their guns are a lot weaker than our railguns."  
_

Franklin checked their position as he hurried to a different bunker. Artillery hammered A Company's position relentlessly, and most of the troops were retreating into bunkers and guard towers before they could find the proper range to begin shelling the emplacements. The crump of his mortars sounded in response, but they were pitifully weak in the face of the Nod self-propelled guns.

"Mortars, bring down the overpass if you have to," he ordered, ducking into one of the communications bunkers, and checking his command computer.

They were close. Nod armor less than three kilometers out, with infantry probably close behind, if not filtering in ahead of them. It wasn't going to be long now.

"Get me the 14th," Franklin called as he walked inside the bunker. "I'm going to need them to cover the north flank so I can bring the rest of the troops around to the west." He paused, checking a line of friendly contacts about thirty minutes out, to their south. "Who are they?"

"Fourth Battalion, 103rd Recon," replied one of the comms sergeants. "Under command of BC Karrde. The general's bringing them up to take command."

"Balls," Franklin hissed again. The last thing he needed or wanted was some jumped up shit with requisition powers and a fancy computer taking control of his men. He'd be damned if he'd let this idiot get his soldiers killed.

* * *

"Scorpion, four hundred meters, elevation ten point three!"

"Target acquired!"

"Fire!"

The Predator shook with one hundred and twenty tons of solid recoil force as the railgun shattered the air in all directions. The bullet-resistant windows of the line of abandoned vehicles nearby shattered as the sonic shockwave blew through them. Four hundred meters downrange, moving between two apartment buildings, the lead Nod Scorpion was hit dead center in its crew compartment, and the turret was spun around almost one hundred and eighty degrees. Chunks of armor plating, deformed like molten plastic, flew through the air, and the Nod light tank slewed to a halt. Fire belched from the hole a moment later.

"That's a kill," muttered Sergeant Gerald Parjita, smiling.

Major Jess Howell nodded. She was a slight woman, in her early thirties, on the fast track to Lieutenant Colonel and command of her own armored regiment, and was now neck deep in Nod armor. Her Predator, call sign _"Demon Hand," _bumped along as it rolled down the street, and behind her was another tank, call sign _"Pray Harder," _commanded by First Lieutenant Entail. They were part of a multi-pronged aggressive spearhead straight into the Nod Scorpion advance, thirty Predators rolling straight into twice their number of Scorpions at full speed.

The plan was daring and very risky, but Howell knew the dangers. More importantly, she knew the psychological effect of fast-moving armor, especially against opponents who knew they were driving inferior machines.

"Scorpion, five ten meters." Howell called. "Two more behind it! Elevation twelve point two."

"Target acquired!"

"Fire!"

The Scorpions weren't bad tanks, and actually worked well as light armor. They had faster autoloaders, but their 85mm guns were no match for the much larger 120mm cannons on the Predators, and were firecrackers compared to the MR-12 90mm railguns ten of Howell's thirty tanks carried. Their armor sacrificed durability for speed, as Nod preferred flanking mobility assaults with Scorpions. However, the urban terrain they were fighting in now favored tanks with superior frontal armor and heavier guns, at least on the offensive, which meant Howell's Predators were living up to their name.

The third Scorpion ahead of them fired a single shot that skipped off _Demon Hand's _front armor. _Hand_ and _Pray Harder _obliterated it with a shot each.

"Ma'am, through or around?" Corporal Miller, her driver, asked. The burning hulks of their victims blocked the road dead ahead.

"If we can't bypass it, they sure as hell can't," Howell said, looking at the tank hulks.

"Not with armor," Gerald murmured. "Infantry can get through."

"Hm." Howell checked her UAV feed, and saw that the rest of the armor assaults were progressing as they should, fingers of three or four tanks each rolling up the streets and obliterating Nod armor with near impunity. The railguns were reaping a horrible tally among the enemy, and they only had one tank destroyed, a mobility kill that allowed the crew to bail.

However, twice as many Scorpions were inbound, bringing the enemy armor total up to about eighty tanks, not counting at least twenty self-propelled Specter guns, and another thirty-odd small, scarab-like six-wheeled vehicles. Significant infantry strengths moved with them, at least regiment-sized.

On the recon video, she could also see more ominous shapes – at least three hulking black walkers.

Avatars.

"This is going to get ugly," she murmured, grimacing at the prospect of fighting walkers in urban terrain.

* * *

"See anything?"

The Pitbull bumped along over a bit of debris, the crew barely feeling it as the speedy little vehicle's superior suspension took the impact. Sitting in the operator's seat, Sergeant Derek Hershey looked up from the array of sensor displays and the controls for the Pitbull's missile launchers to glare at his driver.

"I haven't seen anything for the last fifteen minutes, Peterson," he hissed, getting aggravated by his second's constant nervous questions. Of course, they were on edge, but Peterson was the worst, and the bag of chocolate coffee crystals he'd eaten just a bit earlier was starting to show; the kid was wired, a little twitchy, and emphatically anxious.

Hershey looked back to his screen as he heard Peterson continue talking. Outside, they could see the flicker of distant firelight, illuminating clouds of smoke as the sun continued descending. The occasional rumble reached them inside the Pitbull's enclosed cabin.

"Yeah, but its just, they're out there. You see anything? Nod's got all this crazy invisibility tech. Pop up and kill us if we're not watching the sensors like hawks. Heard a story from one of the TW2 vets, said they lost an entire armored company to a couple of stealth tanks because their sensor array was malfunctioning, so we need that radar-"

"Peterson, breathe," cut in Corporal Bartilucci, sitting behind Hershey. Like the sergeant, he had a set of weapons controls in front of him, in this case set into the back of the sergeant's chair. While Hershey was operating the missile launchers, though, Bartilucci was in control of the mortar launcher set between the missile racks.

To the mortar operator's left, looking out the window with every sign of alert anxiety, was PFC Willik, GD2 rifle in hand. He was the lowest-ranking trooper crammed into the little Pitbull, and his job was the simplest - he shot anything that got too close to use the missiles or mortars on. Which, with Nod, meant anyone they saw; the sophisticated sensor suite on the Pitbull could easily spot vehicles and aircraft, but infantry was another matter entirely, especially in urbanized terrain like this.

Peterson paused, and they could all hear him breathing slowly over the Pitbull's engine and the periodic chirping of the radio. Hershey called in to report no enemy contacts after a few moments, and resumed monitoring the sensor array.

Behind them, they could see the second Pitbull of Alpha Squad, Second Platoon, B Company, under the command of Sergeant "Boomstick" Williams. On the sensor display, Hershey could see the conical sweeping of the other Pitbull's array, running opposite theirs. Just behind the two Pitbulls were a pair of Guardians, each loaded with a squad of riflemen. The APCs were slower than the agile little Pitbulls, but the Battle Commander wanted the recon spears to have as much firepower as they could muster, as they were operating in potentially hostile territory.

There was a ping on Hershey's radar, and he frowned. He saw a flurry of friendly contacts on the screen, and then some ambiguous ones, what looked like thermal and electronic scanning signatures. He checked the location, and keyed his radio.

"Command, Recon One," he called. "Possible contact at marker two five three, near friendly contacts. Looks like that evacuation convoy from the Pentagon, over."

A couple of seconds passed, probably as the BC checked the incoming information himself.

_"Copy," _the Commander said. _"Check contacts, make sure they're not civilians."_

"Understood, sir," Hershey said, and Peterson began to turn the wheel as they reached an intersection. Behind them, the rest of their part of the recon spear began to follow.

_"If they are not civilians, you are cleared to engage,"_ the Commander added, and Hershey nodded.

"Understood, sir," he replied again, this time with a bit of weariness, after having gone through one battle already that day. Maybe they'd be able to let Peterson burn some of the thousands of calories he was itching to get rid of.

* * *

_"Sir, we have visual on UAV. Range, about five hundred meters."_

As he heard the transmission from the scout bike commander, a sergeant named Vannick, Brother Captain Allen sent an acknowledging signal. He looked down to his laser rifle, checking it once more, and ran a quick diagnostic on his suit and targeting software. Finally, he ran a quick radio check with the rest of his company. A couple of terse, one-word radio transmissions to his rifle platoons confirmed they were in position.

The Black hand checked his GPS, nodding silently to himself as he picked up the data feeds from the UAVs shadowing the convoy, indistinguishable from a thousand other drones flitting about in the skies over the chaotic zone. One thing that the broken urban landscape offered them was a plethora of small airborne drones that their own unobtrusive scouts could blend into.

_"Targeting solution acquired," _Vannick whispered over the radio. _"Convoy at four hundred meters. Standing by."_

Allen watched the feed, tensing, and bit back the small bit of apprehension he always felt before battle. The Black Hand knew no fear, supposedly. He'd be damned if he'd let that fear, or _any_ emotion, show in front of the rank and file.

The Hand officer sent the standby signal, gripped his rifle tightly, and counted down.

* * *

She settled back in the hard chair, listening to the thrumming of the truck's engine and the quiet, terse back-and-forth of the troopers reporting over the radio, and closed her eyes.

The madness of the day's events washed over Lieutenant Sandra Telfair as they drove away from the Pentagon, and the magnitude hit her as she finally found a moment to let herself start actually thinking. She felt a tremor in her hands, and looked down at her fingers to see them shaking as they held the black case of sensitive materials.

Jack had told her to get out of the Pentagon with these documents, had entrusted her to evacuate important information, knowing she was one of the few people he could really trust in the quagmire of GDI bureaucratic politics. She'd worked with him for years, and was one of the few people the General had developed a first name basis towards. They were as close to being friends as a senior officer got with an intelligence aide.

And then he'd told her to run. To leave him behind.

It felt like a dereliction of duty, even with the direct orders she'd been given. Even knowing she was InOps, a rear-echelon officer whose experience and knowledge meant she couldn't be anywhere near the front line, it still bit at Sandra to retreat to safety and leave him behind to face the wrath of that massive Nod army.

She looked out the truck's rear, and down at her briefcase, and quietly wondered if there was going to be _any_ safe place soon, if they didn't stop Nod's momentum. Just yesterday things had been the daily routine, and now they were fighting for their lives . . . .

Sandra exhaled, closing her eyes and rubbing them with the palms of her hands.

Then there was noise. A flash. Something horribly powerful slammed into her, and then a burst of darkness.

Her head was ringing. Something warm slid down her face, and she smelled blood and cordite. Burning heat filled the air, pressing against her skin.

The lieutenant opened her eyes, and found herself lying on the side of the truck. It had flipped over, and bodies were strewn about, some moving. Firelight glittered into the back of the truck from somewhere, and pain rolled up the side of her body.

Dimly, over the ringing in her head, she could hear screams, shouts, and then the rapid report of gunfire.

* * *

Fifty meters ahead, the convoy was burning.

Brother-Captain Allen rose from the alley he'd been crouched within and started up the road at a dead run, the rest of his squad behind him. All around him, the light infantry rose in their mish-mash of drab fatigues, many of them letting out shouts or litanies of hatred and victory as they charged.

Allen checked his radar as he charged, and on his optic display, he could see figures piling out of the burning or stopped vehicles. The roar of the scout bike team firing another volley of missiles sounded in his ears, and he saw the projectiles streaking over the rooftops to hammered something on the far side.

Amidst the smoke and flames, Allen spotted the black and gray-armored soldiers forming up, trying to create a perimeter around the line of damaged vehicles while pulling the injured out of the transports.

Wordlessly, he shouldered his rifle and opened fire. In the back of his mind, he wished he'd had his flamethrower, but the Commander had requested they try to take some of them alive, and Allen was a seasoned enough soldier to know that "request" meant "order."

Rounds began to ping off his heavy battle armor, and his auditory sensors sounded with shouts of shock or terror from the GDI troops as they registered the Black Hand. Good. Terror and confusion were among their best weapons.

The Black Hand captain burned down a soldier where he stood, and shifted his aim, firing on a man in a garrison uniform, holding a sidearm. The man's uniform erupted into flames, and he fell screaming. Allen paused, and locked out that particular noise from his auditory receptors; the last thing he needed was a distraction from his work.

* * *

Some of the passengers and troops were rising, and Sandra pushed herself up onto her feet. Pain rolled up her leg, and she looked down to see a couple of small pieces of shrapnel in her thigh. Outside, there was more gunfire and shouting, and then she heard the screaming and hissing of energy weapons.

Sandra knew what that meant, and the noise galvanized her into action. The troops that could stand were piling out the back of the vehicle, rifles up, and Sandra drew her sidearm. Ignoring the pain in her leg, she crouched and grabbed the briefcase. As she rose, a hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder.

"Ma'am," one of the soldiers said, clambering to his feet. It was Corporal Taska, one of the two Pentagon Guards who had been tasked as her bodyguard.

"We've got to get out of here," she breathed, and he nodded, face obscured behind the visor of his ash-gray helmet.

"Kester," Taska hissed, crouching beside the second bodyguard, who was still. Sandra couldn't see any movement from him, though with the heavy armor it was impossible to tell if the trooper was breathing. A moment later, Taska looked up, and gestured toward the door. "Unconscious. Don't have time."

Outside, the incoming laser and rifle fire was growing more intense, and Sandra nodded. She gripped her sidearm and let Taska take the lead. He stepped out the door, turned, and started firing.

"Hostiles, closing in! Go, go!" he shouted quickly back to her, and she leapt out beside him to the mirrored pavement. They were at an intersection, apartment buildings rising up on either side of them, and gunfire ripping towards the convoy from multiple directions. Corpses littered the street, both infantry and rear-echelon, and several plumes of smoke and gouts of red fire blazed up and down the road from destroyed vehicles.

She glanced in the direction he was firing, seeing ruby-red beams of lights cutting toward them and the other soldiers of the convoy, and then she saw the enemy. Black, hulking forms, with glittering red optics arrays and flying capes, moving up the street.

A horrified chill ran through Sandra Telfair. _The Black Hand._

"Move!" Taska shouted, waving her on, and she ducked around the side of the overturned truck. On either side of her, she could see more soldiers fighting or sprawled across the road.

There was a roar overhead, and she looked up in time to see a pair of lean, fast-moving shapes cut past overhead, with bulbous engine pods attached to their sides. The Venoms came around, their underside cannons lighting up, and one of the trucks suddenly erupted into flame as the lasers ripped through the vehicle. Everyone around it was either immolated or scattered.

Taska grabbed her arm suddenly, and began pulling the bewildered officer away from the chaos.

"Need to get to cover!" he shouted, pointing toward one of the buildings. One of their flanks was secure, or at least the Nod forces hadn't had time to prepare an ambush from that side. She rose and started to run in that direction.

More laser fire from the Venoms overhead, now much closer. There was a rush of heat against her side, and she looked up reflexively, to see one of the APCs burst into flames. The Venoms walked their fire up the column, blasting soldiers and support troops apart without mercy.

Their shots moved up to the truck she'd been riding in, and then there was another blast of force, and heat, and then darkness.

The lieutenant opened her eyes, not sure how much time had passed, and felt pain lancing up her side. Something dug into her cheek, and she started to push herself up, her head swimming again. She looked around, seeing burning bodies and intact corpses everywhere, mixed with chunks of debris. A few meters away lay Taska, and she tried calling out to him. Sandra felt air escape her lungs, but couldn't hear her own voice.

Then she realized that ,from the stomach down, Corporal Taska was nothing but char and molten ceramic.

Over the ringing in her ears, Sandra could hear more gunfire, but distant and seemingly irrelevant now. She rolled over onto her back, and saw the briefcase, lying beside her.

The convoy had been overrun. That meant . . . .

She sat up, and then struggled forward. Her hands moved out, groping at the briefcase, and found the metal, warm from the fires. She looked up, and saw the blazing wreck that was the truck she'd come in on, twenty meters away.

Sandra struggled to her feet, flank smarting, and stumbled forward. She raised the briefcase, and with a surge of determined strength, hurled it into the middle of the fire. The briefcase would burn in there; the thing was strong, but it was designed to burn easily if they were compromised.

She spun away, looking around for a weapon. Her sidearm was gone, lost in the explosion. She couldn't see anymore GDI troops that were still alive, and the Venoms were moving along, raking the rest of the convoy. Nod troops would be along soon. She had to move.

Sandra saw a GD2 lying nearby, and limped toward it, pain rolling up her side as she tried to run. She managed to reach down and grab the rifle when pain shot up her leg again, and she fell to one knee. Sandra grit her teeth, hefting the weapon, and started to stand, when a spot on the reflective pavement a meter away burst into vapor, accompanied by the shriek of a laser weapon's discharge.

She turned, raising the rifle, and saw a mass of black metallic plate armor striding toward her, red optical cluster gleaming down at her. A laser rifle was leveled at her, and a surge of sheer terror ran through her at the sight of a Black Hand this close, this _real_.

She wanted to pull the trigger, but Sandra locked up, and in the back of her mind she knew that her weapon couldn't penetrate that heavy battle armor even if she was able to fire.

"Drop it," came the voice, emotionless, filtered, mechanical.

She stared back, and the Hand gestured with its rifle, a tiny fraction of movement.

"Drop the weapon," it said again, taking smooth, steady, implacable steps toward her.

Lieutenant Sandra Telfair was an intelligence officer. She'd been trained for combat at the academy back at West Point, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. She'd never believed or expected she would need that training, and it was a tiny sliver of what actual front-line combat troops experienced. She had never been trained to survive an ambush, never learned to truly conquer her terror, to sublimate her instincts with rote muscle memory and unconscious training.

At that moment, being glared down at by an invincible, inhuman mass of armor and hellish red light, Lieutenant Sandra Telfair was nothing but a shaking child in a tattered uniform, holding a weapon that suddenly felt far too large for her hands.

A child, trying to play soldier, thrust into real war.

The Hand loomed overhead, and she could see others emerging from the smoke and fire behind it. One of them paused next to a body, and fired a laser beam into its chest. The flash of lethal yet pragmatic cruelty jolted her, and she looked up at the figure towering above her, the rifle less than a meter from her head, and realized that she, too, would probably end up just like that.

She could be just another dead body.

An uncontrolled chill ran through her despite the flames, and a flash of instinctual terror ran through her. She was alone, surrounded, and she understood that the weapon she was holding might as well be loaded with blanks for all the good it would do her.

Sandra's trembling fingers released the GD2, and it clattered to the pavement.

"Hands, behind your head," the Hand ordered, and she raised them, putting them against her blood-matted hair.

* * *

"Live one," came a call over the radio, from Brother-Corporal Darien. "Officer. Rear echelon, Lieutenant. Probably intelligence."

"Secured?" Allen asked, as he prodded an enemy soldier missing a leg. The man's rank chevrons identified him as a lance corporal, and he groaned. That ended as Allen blasted him in the back, boiling away ceramic and skin. It probably smelled horrible, but through the filters he could only taste dull, recycled air.

"Secured," Darien confirmed. "No other officers."

_"Brother-Captain, we have contact," _Vannick called over the radio. _"Venoms reporting AA launch! Multiple GDI vehicles, closing!"_

Allen sent a confirmation signal, and then sent a quick chirp across the company band. The Hands and the less-disciplined light infantry broke off from their search and eliminate duties, and began to move out.

They'd done their job, no need to take chances.

_"Captain, orders?" _Vannick asked, his voice uncertain.

"Delay them," Allen replied. "In his name."

_"In the name of Kane," _Vannick replied, voice solemn.

* * *

The crew of Alpha One, Second Platoon, B Company let out an emphatic cheer as they stuffed a pair of guided rockets up the tailpipe of one of the enemy fliers.

"Ka-boom," Hershey said, watching the video display. Up above, a flash of light and a sudden oily streak of burning smoke spread across the sky, and one of the quartet of Venoms went into a tailspin. A second had already plowed into the side of a low apartment complex, courtesy of Boomstick's missiles.

"Looks like the rest are bugging out, Sarge," Bartilucci said, and Hershey nodded. On the radar, the remaining Venoms were diving low over the rooftops and cutting back west. They dropped flares, and Hershey lost their signal for several seconds, and then they were gone, too low for his radar to chase them.

"Commander, got two Venoms, headed your general direction," Hershey called over the radio. "Lost their signal, but they might come in range."

_"Copy," _the Battle Commander replied. _"Have you made contact with the convoy?"_

"Negative," Hershey said, frowning at the plumes of smoke rising over the buildings a few streets away. "ETA maybe two minutes. Looks like-"

"Missile lock, gotta missile lock!" Bartilucci was halfway through that when Peterson swung the Pitbull around, diving down a side street as a gout of moving fire lanced through the skies and crashed down where they'd been headed. The Pitbull shook, and a variety of curses were offered. Hershey checked his radar as Peterson drove, and snarled.

"Alpha Two!" he yelled, fiddling with the sensor display. the computers were backtracking the point of origin of those missiles. "Alpha Two, do you copy?"

_"Copy, One," _Boomstick called back, his voice a bit pained. _"Took a hit. Lost . . . dammit, lost Rhodes. We're not moving. Hit our backside, took out the mortar and missile rack!" _

The UAVs and the radar showed Hershey a pair of Nod recon bikes, nestled in behind a fuel station. Peterson took a quick glance at the map, then to his sergeant, and then nodded. They didn't say anything; they didn't need to. The Pitbull swerved again, and on the screen, they saw another missile launch, though this one headed straight for the picture.

"Lost the UAV," Bartilucci reported, as Peterson whipped them over a street corner, smashing a corner trash can and newspaper vendor.

_"Recon One, Fist One," _Hershey heard over the radio. That would be Alpha Squad, Fourth Platoon, one of the two Guardian APCs and its attached armored fist squad. _"We've got Alpha Two. Loading wounded. Need assistance?"_

"Negative, Fist One," Hershey said as Peterson sent them careening down the street around abandoned cars and strewn rubble. "We've got these assholes."

The gas station was a block ahead. Peterson slammed the gas and the Pitbull launched forward. The computer rang with another missile lock, and two projectiles shot up over the top of the building. The driver jerked the Pitbull to the left, and both missiles hammered the pavement where they'd been an instant before, shattering the glassy street. Shrapnel dinged and clattered off the Pitbull's chassis.

"Sarge, you got a lock?" Willik asked.

"They're hiding behind a fuel station," Hershey hissed, and Willik nodded, understanding. They tried to take that out with missiles, they'd likely level the whole block.

A few moments later, the Pitbull was about to roll around the corner of the gas station, and over the rumble of his own vehicle's engine, Hershey heard the roar of revving motorcycles. Both of the Nod bikes shot out from behind the gas station, realizing they'd been flushed. At this close, Hershey could see the stenciling and marking along the sides of the sleek Nod vehicles.

"Rifles!" Hershey ordered, knowing they were too close for missiles, and grabbed his GD2C carbine. The others raised their own weapons, saving Peterson, who hammered the gas, and then Hershey leaned out of the side of his window.

It was like a bad action movie car chase, where the shooters would lean out the windows to pot away at each other. The irony wasn't lost on Hershey as he edged out of the window, shouldered his rifle, and opened fire. A burst sounded behind him as Bartilucci did the same, leaning further out to get a shot past his sergeant. Willik fired a longer stream of shots on his side, and let out a yell of triumph. A moment later, the Pitbull shook violently, a deep crunching sound filling the air as it smashed light metal and ceramic.

"I just washed this thing!" Peterson shouted, laughing, and Willik cheered at the death of one of the Nod bikes. The second one was swerving around a corner, and both Hershey and Bartilucci loosed a stream of shots after it. Sparks flew up into the air as they hammered the rear of the bike, and suddenly it swerved, as if losing control.

Peterson chased after it, cutting inside its turn and smashing the bike with the mass of the much larger Pitbull. The Nod vehicle flew sideways and hit a parked car, flipping through the air and crashing down across the sidewalk.

The Corporal brought the Pitbull up beside the smashed vehicle, and they saw movement from within the shattered armor-glass of the driver's seat.

"Willik?" Hershey asked, glancing back, and the PFC nodded. He leaned out the side window, pointing his rifle toward the dazed Nod soldier, who was trying to sit up. One arm was at an improbable angle, and blood was seeping from somewhere inside his body, staining the sidewalk.

He looked up as the Pitbull paused alongside his broken bike, and then jerked. The echo of the rifle shot bounced about the surrounding walls several times, and then a second shot sounded as Willik made sure.

That business taken care of, Peterson hit the gas and started them back toward the recon spear.

Two minutes later, the plumes of smoke and raging fires of the convoy spread out before them. Fist One and Fist Two had already arrived, the assault troops fanning out and securing the area, checking for survivors.

Hershey clambered out of his Pitbull, carbine in hand, and ran to join them. Even through the filters on his mask, he could smell the stink of burnt flesh and fuel.

* * *

He stared at the screen, which showed a long line of smoke and fire, transmitted from one of the UAVs. Terse radio messages came and went over the battalion network.

Battle Commander Karrde looked over the images, and checked their position on the GPS. He looked over his Comcom, and highlighted the members of the recon spear that had reached the site of the ambush.

"Recon One, you find anything?" he asked.

_"Negative, sir," _replied Sergeant Hershey. _"Just bodies."_

"No survivors?" Karrde asked quietly, looking out the front camera of his APC.

_"Negative, sir," _Hershey repeated. _"I can start looking, use the scanners, but . . . ."_

The likelihood they'd find anyone was slim, and Nod troops were everywhere. It would be impossible to pick out Nod infantry against the masses of civilians hiding out in the city.

Karrde watched as they rolled into the gates of the Pentagon, walls rising up all around them, waving soldiers at fortified emplacements and bunkers cheering their arrival. Columns of smoke, the shudder of incoming artillery fire, and the blaze of flames filled the air.

"If anyone survived, Nod has them," Karrde whispered, gritting his teeth, and hating himself for being an officer at that moment, and knowing the cruel practicality of the next words he would speak.

"We don't have the manpower," he breathed. "Get back here. We can't waste men and time searching."

_And God help anyone who lived through that ambush, _Karrde thought, before bringing up the battalion radio, and issuing new orders.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Now that I've got some of the OCs established, I felt it was time to start working on and developing some of the actual characters from the game. And by "working on and developing" I mean "hurting." (of course, anyone who's been reading my stuff for any length of time knows that I_ like_ hurting characters, _especially_ the ones I like)

This is pretty much the last real "establishing" chapter for the Pentagon seige. Expect me to spend at least two, probably three chapters detailing the battle itself. I won't spoil anything about the upcoming chapters, except to let you know that there's a _reason_ one of the units listed last chapter was called a "heavy armored division" instead of simply an "armored division." :D

Until next chapter . . . .


	14. Chapter XIII: Act On Instinct

_**Chapter Thirteen: Act On Instinct**_

_"We cleared one of the bunkers of bodies. I remember we had too many left hands. Not enough right hands to go with them. We . . . never figured out who that extra left hand belonged to . . . ."_

_-Anonymous GDI soldier_

Commander Logan Rawne settled back in his chair, assessing his chess pieces and the board spread out before him. After several long minutes, he smiled, and nodded. The GDI tanks were counter-attacking. He reached up into the hologram, moving a few icons, and then sent out a general order. Then he withdrew, assessing the field once more.

His fingers rose and touched a single small icon, unique in the midst of thousands of symbols marking infantry strengths and tank battalions. A second later, a comm channel opened.

_"Yes, Commander?" _a voice, pleasant and feminine, drifted up toward him through his earpiece.

"Lieutenant Cristos," Rawne said, his grin growing. "Its time for you to go to work."

_"I thought you'd never," _she replied, a throaty and pleasing chuckle sounding over the radio.

* * *

He was greeted by a whiff of hot air, a scent of burnt plastic, and the whallop of an exploding artillery shell two hundred meters away as he clambered down the ramp. Battle Commander Karrde ducked and hurried across the parking lot outside the Pentagon, inside the doors of the massive building, accompanied by a troop of his own recon soldiers and a squad of the Pentagon Guards. Heavy gun emplacements guarded the entrance, and Karrde saw a full platoon had been tasked to protecting the entrance.

The image bothered him; it meant whoever was in command had devoted resources to establishing a last-ditch fallback position. That betrayed either a cautious mindset, or more likely, a commander whose battle strategy was relying on defense.

The lobby of the Pentagon had been converted into a forward communications base, per a defense plan that had been drawn up some years back. The Pentagon itself was so damned big that establishing a more secure command center to defend it further down would separate the officers from the troops. Besides, if it came down to the lobby being stormed, no command center would be able to direct the room-to-room chaos that would follow, nor stop the slow, inevitable defeat that such a loss would symbolize.

In the middle of the command center was an officer in the black-and-ash uniform of the Pentagon Guards, with colonel's pips on his collar and a flak vest not unlike General Granger's on his torso. He was almost hairless, head shaved severely, and Karrde momentarily had the impression of Kane's bald skull. The colonel, named Franklin according to his Comcom's screen, was shorter, more muscular and wider in the shoulders. He looked up as Karrde approached, and as the officer put down the datapad he'd been consulting, Karrde caught a momentary tightening of his eyes - a flash of hostility he was trying to hide.

Not good.

"Commander," Franklin said, stepping toward him and extending his hand. Karrde shook it. They were in a hot zone, no saluting here. "Colonel Franklin, Pentagon Guards."

"Commander Karrde," he replied, feeling the man's grip. It was quick and hard, and Karrde responded in kind. "Attached to Fourth Battalion, 103rd Recon."

"General Granger has given me the heads up," Franklin said, picking up his datapad. "I'm syncing my command network with your EVA."

"You don't have one?" Karrde asked, checking his Comcom. Franklin frowned, and Karrde could hear the tension in his pause.

"Budget cutbacks," Franklin replied. He looked over the datapad again. "I see you have about four hundred, total. TO&E says you should have a five-hundred fifty-strong battalion."

"We had trouble on the way up here," Karrde replied. "My battalion's been engaged since before the war officially started."

Franklin was silent for a moment, and then nodded. Some of the tension vanished.

"Understandable," he replied. "I've taken some casualties as well. We've established defensive positions here, here, and here. I have some crews setting up mines along these approaches."

"What about the 7th Reserve?" Karrde asked, checking the maps. "I don't see them. Same for our Zone Security units."

"I wasn't made aware we had any ZoneSec in the area," Franklin murmured, and Karrde sighed. Communications fuckups, as usual.

"Major," Karrde called, and Major Koen hurried up beside him. "Get on the horn with whoever's in charge of those ZoneSec troops. I need them here immediately." The major nodded and moved off, and Karrde resumed checking the maps. "7th Reserve is cut off a half a klick north of here," he said. "Reporting hostile contacts. What about our armor?"

"Major Howell pulled half the armor to head off the Nod advance," Franklin said, transferring that data. Karrde nodded.

"Send the rest to assist," he said. Franklin was about to speak up, but Karrde looked directly into his face, splitting him with his glaring artificial eye. The colonel hesitated, and then nodded, his features tight.

"Yes, _sir_," he replied, and started to speak into the radio bead in his ear. The battle commander reviewed the data, frowning as he did so.

They had at least a battalion-level Nod force circling to their north, delaying reinforcements. More Nod units, probably insurgents being supported by airborne assault troops dropping across the river, probably to delay the 2nd Heavy Armor and 32nd Mechanized Infantry. But the main thrust was still to their west: at least a dozen Specter artillery emplacements, and if the data from Major Howell's armored company was to be believed, two battalion-strength Nod armored forces, with several dozen self-propelled laser guns and at least four Avatar walkers supporting them. That wasn't even counting infantry strengths.

"Commander," Franklin cut in, stepping back beside him. "Just got a query from the General, about the last convoy to leave the Pentagon. He just got the update on the ambush, and . . . ."

"Yeah," Karrde replied, grimacing. "We checked for survivors."

"He was asking about his aide, Lieutenant Telfair. She was in that convoy."

Karrde remembered the young intelligence officer from earlier that morning - what felt like a decade ago now - and paused. He checked his Comcom for the dog tags recovered from the ambush site, and after a second, he shook his head.

"If she was there, we didn't find her," he said, and Franklin nodded, a dark look on his face. Karrde understood. If she was dead, that was bad, but if she was _alive_ . . . .

* * *

They came to a halt in an alley. She had exact no idea how far they'd gone, but she guessed they were within half a kilometer of the ambush site; the smoke clouds were still visible in the sky between the buildings.

They'd bound her wrists with a simple zip-tie, behind her back. The plastic bit into her skin whenever she moved her arms. At least they hadn't blindfolded her, probably because they needed her mobile. If she couldn't see, she was likely to stumble - that was the only reason she could think of as to why they hadn't already done so.

Sandra's heart was still hammering in her chest as the Black Hand paused in the alley, sending a couple of riflemen ahead to reconnoiter. One of the Hands stood directly behind her, a giant of black ceramic plating and red sensors, the fingers of one glove sitting on her shoulder to keep her in place. The sheer, numbing terror she'd felt back at the ambush was fading, but was quickly being replaced by a much more potent apprehension. She was InOps, and she knew what happened to GDI officers who had been captured by Nod. Forcible conversion was one of the _better_ ends a GDI prisoner could expect.

The lieutenant knew she had to escape, before they got her too far behind Nod lines. But as she stood there in the middle of a dozen heavily-armed Nod special forces, wrists bound and with a Black Hand minder looming over her, Sandra realized she'd never felt such a sense of helplessness before.

The lessons they'd taught her years ago came back into her mind as she stood there, fighting back her own vulnerability. SERE: Survival, Escape, Resistance, Evasion. The first rule of Escape was that all bonds loosened with time.

She moved her arms slightly, testing the zip-tie, and the strong plastic restraints dug into her wrists again. Sandra kept testing them, to see if she could manage any give, but stopped as the gloved fingers on her shoulder squeezed hard. Pain ran down her arm where the Hand was gripping her, and she relaxed, understanding the unspoken message. The pain faded as she stopped resisting, and that sense of helplessness returned in full force.

Sandra looked around, trying to get a sense of where she was and how many troops the had to deal with. She counted at least ten Black Hands, plus about fifteen or more light infantry in mismatched militia fatigues. The lighter troops seemed much less disciplined, chatting quietly among themselves and joking, comparing trophies they'd taken from the bodies of her dead friends and soldiers.

A couple of them glanced her way, and she caught a dangerous gleam in their eyes that made her turn away. Nod wasn't too kind on troops who abused prisoners, but she still knew that the undisciplined militia they so readily employed were not likely to be bound by rules and laws of war - even the twisted ones laid down by Kane.

A couple minutes later, the scouts came back and reported to the Hand who was apparently in charge. The armored figure was dressed no differently from his comrades, and aside from addressing the scouts directly, he had made no hand gestures or other commands. That meant some kind of helmet radio, probably some sophisticated Black Hand communications protocol.

The Hands were silent for a moment, though the lieutenant thought she could hear whispering behind her guard's helmet. Then, without warning, something slid over her eyes, an all-pervading blackness that wrapped tightly around her head. Then, Sandra Telfair was shoved forward, and the group of Nod soldiers moved off, blindfolded prisoner in tow.

* * *

"You're insane."

Karrde stared back at Franklin, who was giving him a look that matched the words he'd just spoken.

"Major Howell disagrees," Karrde replied, gesturing toward the monitor. "And I'm mobilizing the rest of the tanks to support her. She's got the right idea."

"We can not move away from prepared positions to meet the Nod advance!" Franklin said, jabbing a hand at the UAV feeds, showing what looked like rivers of dark blots moving through the streets just a few kilometers away. "Estimated enemy strength is at division-level, and we have only two battalions! We can't meet them head on!"

"I'm not surrendering the urban terrain, not without delaying them," Karrde replied, shaking his head. "You and I both know that we can't hold them off indefinitely, not a force of that size. Our only chance is to hold out until reinforcements arrive, and that we can only do if we fight for every second we can get."

"This is suicide," Franklin said. "I'm not moving my Guards out to engage Nod in the city itself. We'll be slaughtered."

"That's not your call, _Colonel_," Karrde replied, putting enough emphasis on the word to make his point clear. "You and your men are officially attached to _my_ command as of twenty minutes ago." Franklin was about to speak when Karrde cut him off. "And if you have any objections to that, I will have you _arrested_, Colonel. Am I clear?"

Franklin's jaw worked a few times, and then he nodded darkly. Karrde then gestured to the map.

"But that's not what I need your men to do anyway. I'll be moving my battalion out behind Howell's armor. Meanwhile, I need your Guards to break the Nod force delaying the 7th Reserve. If we can get them here, we'll be able to form a solid defense line in the buildings around the main complex."

"That'll leave us with three hundred meters of open ground to cover in case of a retreat," Franklin said, still unwilling to wholly concede to Karrde's command without a fight.

"If we have to fall back to the Pentagon's walls, we're FUBAR'd anyway," Karrde said with a shrug. "Do it." Franklin hesitated, and then nodded, his features grudging. He moved off to issue the new orders, while Karrde brought up the battalion channel for his unit.

He hoped he wouldn't have any more clashes with Franklin over this.

"Fourth Battalion, listen up," he called. "A, B, and C Companies, I need you to form up on the east side of the Pentagon, get ready to roll out. We're going to meet these bastards head on, right behind the armor. D Company, Slingshots, I need you to shore up the defense line." He sent several additional orders, mostly forming up the Zone Security units in the area into a mobile reserve. Their effective CO, a Captain named Matsuda, moved quickly to consolidate his troops.

With his forces deployed as best he knew the would be, Karrde grit his teeth and sent the remaining troops of Fourth Battalion out into combat. he watched their icons roll out onto the tactical display behind the remaining tanks and armor units, and forced himself to relax and ready himself for the most grueling moment in his career.

It was time to address and deny Kane's best.

* * *

Three more Predators had died in the last five minutes.

Nod's tankers hadn't been expecting an armored counterthrust, but they had rallied faster than Major Howell expected. The Scorpions had stopped rolling straight toward them, charging into an unexpectedly straight fight with the Predator assault, and instead were digging in and preparing ambushes along the debris-strewn roads.

_Demon Hand _and _Pray Harder _shot around a corner, cannons blasting as they sighted an ambush dead ahead on their UAV feeds. A Scorpion was hit by direct hits from the two Predators' shells, and erupted into a ball of shrapnel and black smoke. Two more shells slammed into the building behind them as another pair of Scorpions a bit further back opened fire.

Then a third shell whipped toward them from a cross-alley, striking _Pray Harder _in the middle of its right track. The treads shattered, ceramic plating and track sections exploding from the impact, and the Predator slewed to a halt. The turret spun quickly, firing up the alley, but the ambushing Scorpion was already backing up, and the heavy shell missed it cleanly.

"Entail!" Howell yelled as she heard the autoloader clack a new shell into place beside her head.

_"Tracks jammed," _Entail reported. _"We're stuck."_

"Bail once we've cleared-" Howell was about to tell Lieutenant Entail to abandon his tank once they'd finished the Scorpions, but was cut off as a brilliant horizontal lance of ruby light erupted in the middle of the street, between the Scorpions. _Pray Harder's _armor boiled away, and an instant later the ammunition magazine cooked off. The rear half of the Predator erupted into a storm of expanding ceramic armor and shrapnel, fire belching from its crew hatches.

Down the street, three hundred meters away, steam hissed from the coolant units of a low, six-wheeled Nod vehicle, the laser cannon mounted on its back recharging.

That was what the Scorpions had been screening.

"Scorpion, left, two eighty meters," Howell snarled, trying to hold back the flare of rage she felt at that moment.

"Target acquired," her gunner replied.

"Fire." The Predator shook, the world shuddered, and the Scorpion down the street stopped dead in its tracks, a gout of fire and smoke exploding from the hole in its front armor.

"Get us around," she hissed, seeing the Scorpion was blocking her line of fire on the Nod beam cannon. "I want that tank-killer." Her driver shouted his compliance, lost in the clatter of the autoloader as it slammed a fresh shell into place in the off-set Predator cannon. The tank lurched and shook, smashing over a parked car as the driver slewed the Predator around to the left to get a clear shot at the beam cannon.

_Demon Hand _shook again, this time from a direct impact. Alarms wailed. The infrared scanner cut out and died, followed by the starlight scope and electromagnetic tracker.

"Direct hit!" her gunner called. "The other Scorpion!"

"Lock it," Howell hissed. "Two forty meters and closing, right seven degrees."

"Got it."

"Fire."

Down the street, the advancing Scorpion, jerked to a halt as one of its trio of track sections exploded into shrapnel and debris. It lurched to a halt, the crew clearly shaken by the blast.

In her scope, now operating based almost entirely on laser rangefinding and visual scanning, Howell picked out the beam cannon, its weapon gleaming as it prepared to fire again.

"Nod cannon, three twenty, left four degrees," she declared.

"Target acquired."

"Blow it."

They fired at the same time. A scarlet beam of light and a solid shell of high explosive, armor piercing payload lanced past one another. The former burned clean through the right track section of _Demon Hand_, slagging the wheels, treads, and all the armor on that side of the Predator. The latter blew straight through the front windshield of the hunched little six-wheeled laser vehicle, pulping its crew and detonating inside the selection of fuel cells powering the main gun. The beam cannon exploded in a ball of fire and spiraling shrapnel that dug furrows into brick walls on all sides.

Howell grinned, despite the way her tank lurched to a halt. That was for Entail and his people, now that-

_Demon Hand _shuddered violently, and Howell's head smacked against the rangefinder in front of her. She shook her head quickly, trying to recover from the shock, and the lower half of her body felt warm and wet. She looked down.

The upper half of her driver was now strewn about the interior of the tank, splattered over the instruments and her uniform. A gaping hole had been torn in the tank's flank, a shell having lanced through the weakened and molten side armor and liquefying her driver.

"Out," she felt herself mouthing, remembering the remaining, immobilized Scorpion outside. There was no way in hell they'd be able to turn and fire on it before it got off another shot. She scrambled up out of her chair, dimly aware of her gunner trying to do the same, and the Major threw open the hatch overhead. She scrambled out into the open air - it was chilly after the heat inside her tank, and rolled off the left side of the Predator.

Then there was noise, and darkness.

* * *

The Predator jerked and bounced as it rolled over scattered debris. Corporal Mitchell Colt tried to steady himself, busying himself with checking the platoon tactical network as the tank carried them west. Sitting or crouching on the tank like a collection of human-shaped sacks of supplies, were the rest of Bravo Squad, Second Platoon. Penlan and Gutierrez were cracking some jokes, and Lancaster was looking west, over the tank's turret, eyes open.

Tank "desant" as it was called was not a normal tactic; in fact, having troops riding on a tank into combat was a good way of getting a squad and a tank killed in a single shot. However, it was necessary sometimes, when no other transport was available, and the twelve-ton trucks they had been using were poorly suited for transport directly into combat. Instead, individual squads had latched onto passing Pitbulls or Predators like deadly, gun-toting barnacles, and were riding with them into battle.

That battle, Colt saw, was not going well. Major Howell's Predator charge had spoiled the first wave of advancing Nod armor, but now they were digging in, with heavy armor support, infantry, self-propelled guns, and Avatars moving up behind them. The Major herself was now out of contact, which didn't bode well, and the tanks were falling back. On the general tactical maps, a series of marked lines was forming among the buildings, indicating phase lines they would hold and gradually fall back to, all the way to the Pentagon itself.

A kind of dull numbness settled over Colt as they bounced along. A sense of death and gloom hung in the air, and rumbled in his gut. Or maybe that was the chili from chow that morning.

He checked the map again. They were now only a few minutes out from Phase Line Alpha. Deployment orders were to dig in and kill everything they saw.

He could do that. He could do that damn well.

Over the rumble of the Predator's engines, Colt could hear the hiss of jetpacks, and looked up in time to see a cluster of armored, hulking figures careen past overhead in the twilight gloom. He raised a fist and let out a cheer, which was picked up by the rest of his squad as the Zone Troopers jetted past.

* * *

_"Lieutenant." _It had been a simple word that cut in over his frequency shortly after general deployment orders had gone out.

"Yes, Commander?" Lieutenant Wallace had replied as he and his Zone Troopers hurried down the streets, as fast as the APCs carrying their troops.

_"Kill that artillery."_

"Yes, sir," Wallace had replied. And he had smiled.

And then he had flown.

Twenty two Zone Troopers shot across the rooftops of the lines of apartment complexes, pushing through the dust and smoke. It was prevalent up here, like rising columns of spreading ash, or the shifting tree-trunks of a fever dream forest.

Wallace frowned. He was getting too poetical, probably from the lack of sleep.

His onboard computers worked furiously, to the point where he could hear the fans somewhere deep inside his suit, over the whine of the gears and machinery of his suit, or the dull thrum of his backpack power generator, or the standard call-and-return over his radio. He dully sensed pressure in his gloves, the zone armor's feedback mechanisms supplying his insulated fingers with the tactile presence of the heavy railgun he cradled in his arms. His head-up display flickered and flashed with a thousand bits of data, and he sifted through it all with practiced ease.

And he flew. His jets let him bound across the rooftops of the city like some bad 60s comic book hero. Except in this case, he _was_ a hero, though not one of the costumed crusaders who fought for justice and whatnot against the seedy criminal underbelly of the city. Those heroes had advantages: they could choose where they went, pick their opponents, and generally had villains they could hammer without worry.

Those heroes also had disadvantages. For example, they lacked platoon-wide synchronized data networks connected to state-of-the-art artificial intelligence systems that provided data feeds from two hundred different intelligence sources and could calculate firing trajectories on the fly so that when the final jetpack burst cut out and their booted feet hammered the glossy pavement atop, they had a perfectly prepared firing solution for a two-meter long rifle capable of projecting one-inch long tungsten armor-piercing discarding sabot slugs at velocities that could best be described as "ouch."

There was a squad of Nod soldiers on one side of the line of Spectres, covering the artillery batteries' right flank from about a hundred meters out. The squad ceased to be relevant a second later, their body parts flying and gaping holes punched in their torsos. The three closest Spectres suddenly found a flurry of super-sonic slugs tearing through their armor, shredding crewmembers, cooking off artillery magazines, and generally ruining everyone's conception of being safely behind the front line.

Wallace and his Zone Troopers stormed forward, loping along the highway like humanoid wolves, all but baying as they closed in on their prey. The Spectres' commanding officer had not taken into account the mobility offered by the Zone Troopers' armor, and Wallace intended to not let him correct the error. The power-armored soldiers rolled up the street, railguns cracking, picking apart enemy soldiers as they tried to intercept the attackers, and blowing apart any artillery units they tried to shelter behind.

There were fourteen Spectre cannons spread across the overpass. Ten minutes later, there were fourteen new columns of inky black smoke rising into the sky, almost invisible against the darkening night.

"Job's done," Wallace called over the radio as the last Spectre was set ablaze. "Pack it up."

As one, the Zone Troopers turned and jetted away from the line of wrecked vehicles, disappearing into the chaotic smoke and debris below. He frowned as he hit the street below and started jogging back to friendly lines.

There should have been a serious battle breaking out in the streets by now, considering the last updates on the Nod advance. But now that the Spectres were silenced, there was a strange quiet. He couldn't see any Nod units on any of his direct visual feeds.

That gave Wallace a deep, queasy sense of unease.

* * *

First contact for Fourth Battalion's main infantry and vehicle forces went to B Company's Fourth Platoon, one of the "armored fist" units. Corporal Harren Bendis found his Guardian swerving to a halt, the crew commander yelling a warning just before the twin-linked .50 cal cannon opened fire. The rear hatch crashed down, and Bendis rose, GD2 shouldered, and stormed down the ramp, sweeping out to cover his sector. All was clear except for the roar of the .50, and to the left the second APC was halting and firing as well.

"Fan out, right side!" Bendis ordered, pointing at the nearest building. "Team two! Inside that storefront!" The squad's second fireteam moved out, charging into the building and taking cover within, while Bendis brought the rest of the squad up to the right side of the APC, taking cover. On the opposite side of the street, Alpha Squad, the squad from the second APC, was mirroring their position, securing both sides of the street.

The ground rumbled, and then the air shuddered, and two Predator tanks rolled up into the gap between the two Guardians, locking down the middle of the road. Bendis slid into cover behind another abandoned car, sighting down his rifle's scope, and waited for a target to present itself.

The soldiers could see nothing down the street, though the far end was choked with dust and smoke from the constant scything fire from both Guardians and Predators. Tracer fire from the heavy machineguns showed him where the gunners thought they spotted targets, but the dim lighting made it hard to see anything. A few small fires illuminated the street here and there, but the firelight showed him nothing useful.

"Where are they?" he heard one of his men ask.

Bendis didn't know, but he shushed the trooper with a quick hiss.

"Radio discipline," he reminded them, and settled in, watching and waiting for a target to appear in the gloom.

Minutes passed, and nothing emerged. The Guardians and Predators ceased fire, and a tense silence settled over the darkened street. The only sounds they could hear were the distant roars of flying aircraft, the idling of the armored vehicles' engines, and their own breathing.

Despite himself, Bendis felt like asking the very same question: where were the enemy?

* * *

"How many of Howell's units are left?" Karrde asked, leaning over the map display in the center of the makeshift command center. A holographic representation of the DC area floated before him, marking the lines of GDI troops and vehicles moving into position. A hazy red line marked the Nod advance, with a hash mark over the overpass, where the Zone Troopers had killed the artillery.

"About twenty-three effectives," replied one of the Guard troops, a staff sergeant sitting at a console. "We're still out of contact with Howell herself. Command is being delegated to Captain Curren, and they are falling back."

"No further contact with Nod troops since?"

"No, sir," the sergeant replied.

"Anything on UAV or satellite?"

"No sir, can't find anything," replied another trooper. "Nothing definite on thermals or radar."

"There's a lot of smoke and dust down there," Major Koen remarked.

"Too much for what we've seen thus far," Karrde agreed. "They're putting up smoke and chaff. What about those Avatars?" Nod couldn't hope to hide those.

"They're holding about a kilometer back," replied a lieutenant, highlighting the enormous black war walkers. "But they've got a wall of smoke and haze between us and them."

"They could be hiding an entire division under there," Karrde mused, flexing his fingers.

"Why aren't they attacking, then?" Koen asked, voicing everyone's unspoken question.

Long minutes passed in silence as they watched the feeds, waiting for any change, but the Avatars and the forces clustered around them remained still and silent, and they could see no movement within the walls of smoke and chaff blocking their sight.

Karrde released his breath, finally noticing he was holding it. Nod had the initiative now, they had the advantage of cover, and he'd seen enough of what they were capable of to know that when he couldn't see what their forces were doing, he should be _very_ worried.

* * *

Twenty miles away, Commander Logan Rawne reached up into his holographic chessboard and moved a single piece.

His grin was tight and predatory.

The queen was now in play.

* * *

Sergeant Felix Dortmunder of A Company, Third Platoon, Bravo Squad was moving up an alley between an auto shop and what he guessed was a supermarket, when the world flashed into a brilliant wall of incandescence. It was like a sudden burst of light from Heaven, filling the night with impossible brilliance.

It was also the last thing he ever saw, as that same searing brilliance vaporized his helmet, skin, skull, and brain, decapitating the squad leader where he stood. he toppled to the pavement, rifle clattering to the ground, and behind him, the rest of his squad raised their weapons, shouting in alarm.

Private First Class Boreale was right behind his sergeant, and raised his GDM-12 to his shoulder. A sudden flash, and then an agonizing burning sensation flowed through his chest, and then turned into a numbing chill. He dropped to his knees, and then saw another flash of light - a laser beam, he realized, cut past, and heard a scream of pain from one of the other members of his squad.

Boreale fell to the pavement, his whole body going numb, and then smelled the stink of burnt human flesh. It took him a moment to realize the smell was of his own.

By that time, he'd seen the laser beams scythe down the alley, slicing through his squad with shocking ease. It took a split-second for a soldier to raise his weapon from move-to-contact, but in that split second he, the sergeant, and two more men had been speared by laser fire.

The trooper in the back actually managed to get off a burst before his head was severed, a precision laser beam turning his neck into exploding ash. As the body dropped tot he pavement, Boreale thought he heard footsteps, and a figure stepped over him gingerly.

It was a nondescript form, shaped like a woman in light fatigues and webbing, wearing some kind of sensor goggles and a headset. On her back was a small backpack and she had several pouches on her belt, and a cable ran from the backpack to a laser pistol she held in her right hand.

She surveyed the bodies, pausing the look at Boreale, and then turned away. He tried to reach for his weapon, but as his cold fingers brushed his GDM-12's grip, the woman simply ceased to be there, vanishing into the gloom.

PFC Boreale blinked, frowned, managed to mouth the first couple of syllables of _What the fuck?_ and then knew nothing more.

* * *

_"Bravo, report! Bravo, respond!"_

Sergeant Alex Chunn of Alpha Squad, First Platoon, A Company, overhead the calls of his platoon commander over the platoon radio channel.

"Finch, take your team and check out Bravo's last position," Chunn ordered. "Be careful. I don't like this."

"Aye, Sarge," Finch replied. His soldiers moved away from the roadblock the squad had established along a side street with their APC, disappearing into the nighttime shadows. He listened intently over the radio as Corporal Finch and his two teammates set off, and several minutes passed with nothing but the terse call-and-return of a unit on the move.

Then, Chunn heard a burst of static, several frantic shouts, and then nothing. The squad vital signs display in his helmet blinked, and then showed him three KIA markers for that fireteam.

Chunn wasn't stupid, and he'd served long enough to recognize the situation. He keyed his platoon commander.

"Top, we've got Nod infiltrators inside-"

Chunn's helmet exploded, ending his transmission mid-sentence, and a heartbeat later the rest of his squad was cut down in a flurry of red laser beams. Before the Guardian APC could traverse its turret, a darting female figure was already moving up the still-lowered boarding ramp.

* * *

First Platoon's Delta Squad was moving to investigate the loss of contact with Alpha Squad, and were moving with all due caution. The squad sergeant, Michael Given, had known Sergeant Chunn personally, and knew he wouldn't make a mistake about this kind of thing. He had his troops on alternating night vision and thermal view modes, to make sure nothing snuck up on them. Or at least, nothing without cloaking tech . . . .

Chunn's APC was parked exactly where it should have been, though they neither sent nor answered radio challenge. Given moved one fireteam up while his second stayed at the entrance to a nearby alley, covering them.

They got within thirty meters of the roadblock, and were just reporting sighting bodies when the APC's duel .50 cannons whirled towards them and opened fire.

Two men were pulped instantly, and the last was shredded as he dove for cover. Given and his fireteam dropped behind cover, and the sergeant himself started shouting frantically over his radio that the roadblock had been taken by Nod troops. Pavement and pieces of masonry chipped and flew all around him as the APC loosed a series of four-second bursts of cannon fire at his position.

If he'd had more time, and had been able to pay attention to the renegade Guardian's fire patterns, the sergeant would have noticed that the guns were firing on a simple, repeated pattern, the sort of thing that would have been hastily programmed into the APC's targeting computer. As it was, he was too busy taking cover and reporting in to pay attention to subtle details like that.

Given did, however, notice a shadowy figure moving up behind his fireteam in the alley, shrouded in a near-perfect cloak of high-tech invisibility and nighttime gloom. He was raising his rifle and shouting a warning to his fireteam when the figure suddenly became visible, and the alley lit up with bloody red lighting.

The last thing Sergeant Given and his two remaining troopers saw was a smiling, nondescript woman backlit by crimson.

* * *

"Commando! Commando!" Karrde yelled over the radio as the flurry of reports of dead troopers flowed in, two dozen men and women popping up on his Comcom with flashing red KIA markers. More appeared with every passing moment, and he knew the pattern of carnage tracing itself through his lines all too well.

"Platoon commanders, we have a Nod commando at marker Alpha Two-Seven-Seven!" He keyed into his armored company's channel. "Second Platoon, move up to secure that area, Pitbulls in front. We've probably got infantry and armor moving into the gap that commando is breaking." He switched channels again. "I need UAV recon on that area, now! Do we have any Sky Sentries in the area?"

"Commander!" Major Koen called, and Karrde looked up to the main screen.

His blood ran cold.

There was movement in the smoke and haze clouds.

* * *

Commander Logan Rawne watched the movements of both friend and enemy on the display. He observed his queen as she danced among the enemy, wreaking havoc.

Rawne had learned first-hand that in any war, the key to victory - meaningful victory involving the capture of usable assets, and not complete annihilation of the enemy - always lay in the infantry. Soldiers could move into territory no tank could manage, could hold terrain more securely than any air cover, hit from directions where there was no defense, and secure against rebellion and insurrection more thoroughly than any other weapon of war. He'd waged guerilla warfare against GDI using only riflemen and man-portable anti-tank weapons, and had repeatedly defeated their heavy armor brigades, Orca air fleets, and ion cannon arrays with nothing but foot infantry.

And now, he took that lesson and applied it on the other side: he had to eliminate the enemy infantry, for in this terrain they could hold ground ten times more effectively than any armor.

Lieutenant Cristos would do her duty well.

He waited, watched, and finally reached up into the display, selecting a series of icons. He paused, stilled his breath, and committed.

His rooks moved into play, and now the game was on for keeps.

* * *

Corporal Colt looked out from inside the storefront he'd taken cover behind. he could hear distant gunfire, somewhere north, near where A Company had been stationed. Outside, two APCs, a pair of Pitbulls, and a pair of Scorpions, along with a whole platoon of C Company troops was dug in along a main road leading toward the Pentagon.

"About to get busy real soon," Gutierrez murmured, and Colt nodded. He could hear his own heartbeat, feel it hammering his whole body, though it seemed distant. Distant, and slow, like . . . .

Colt looked up, out the window, down the darkened street and the blank haze down at the far end. He opened his mouth to speak when the two Predators parked in the street itself opened fire, their shells shattering the night. An instant later, the APCs began to blaze away too, and the Pitbulls' mortars _thunked_, followed by the rush of their launching missiles.

"I don't see anything!" Lancaster called, peering through his rifle's scope. "What the hell are they shooting at?"

"Hold fire until we've got a target!" Colt ordered, tensing up behind his rifle. He steadied his breathing, reminding himself that he was in charge of this squad, and that the low, steady thumping he was hearing was just his heart.

The tanks shook the air again, and the Pitbulls fired another volley of missiles. On Colt's HUD, he saw dozens of targets in the depths of the smoke and chaff clouds, but nothing clear for him to shoot at.

The thumping was getting louder, and he felt vibrations in the ground. His breathing was getting faster, and he realized that the pounding of his heart was much, much faster than the rumbling of each impact he was hearing.

A red column of light screamed down toward the vehicles, hitting one of the Predators dead center and vaporizing the outer layers of armor. The barrel deformed almost instantly, ammunition and fuel cooking off and exploding a heartbeat later. The overpressure wave knocked over a nearby squad, and one man was sliced apart by molten shrapnel. Half of one of the Pitbulls was melted by the residual heat washing off the Predator, and the other sixty-ton tank was shoved several meters sideways by the force of the explosion. The pavement buckled and melted beneath the raw thermal power of the laser beam.

Through the haze, rising up past the fifth story of the nearest apartment building, red lights gleamed and burned, rising and falling in time to the shuddering impacts. Another searing red beam screamed from the glittering lights, and one of the APCs was blown apart. The nearest riflemen were set ablaze like matchsticks.

Colt stared in mute horror as the massive humanoid shape emerged from the darkness and gloom, and raised its arm to fire again. He fumbled for his helmet radio.

"Avatar!" he screamed frantically. "Avatar contact at marker Alpha Three Two Seven!"

His words were drowned out as the Avatar fired again, obliterating a Pitbull, and at its feet, he saw the scuttling scarab forms of Scorpion tanks, Reckoner APCs, and Nod infantry.

Colt did the only thing he could do: he raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger, as the world shattered and burned all around him.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** To answer a question asked in a recent review, GDI's standard GD2 uses 7.62x51mm NATO (even though NATO kinda-sorta doesn't exist anymore) This caliber is standard across the board for all their rifles and machineguns, save for their railgun sniper rifles, which use a modified 12.7x108mm round designed for railgun use. Nod, on the other hand, has no set cartridge type, as their militia use a wide range of mismatched small arms.

Hm. None of GDI's heavy metal this chapter. _Patience_. I am _just_ as eager to see it in action as you are.

Until next chapter . . . .


	15. Chapter XIV: Caged Animals

_**Chapter Fourteen: Caged Animals**_

_I HAVE A RENDEVOUS WITH DEATH AT SOME DISPUTED BARRICADE_

_AND MAYBE HE SHALL TAKE MY HAND AND LEAD ME INTO HIS DARK LAND_

_AND CLOSE MY EYES AND QUENCH MY BREATH_

_I HAVE A RENDEVOUS WITH DEATH, AND I TO MY PLEDGED WORD AM TRUE_

_I SHALL NOT FAIL THAT RENDEVOUS_

_-anonymous graffiti found on walls of Pentagon Barricade Wall Section 1-7 Bravo_

The GD2's bolt clacked open, and he reached for another magazine. The ceiling above him blew out, showering the reduced squad with concrete, chunks of plaster, and gobs of insulation. The more solid bits pinged off his helmet as he dragged a fresh magazine from his hip and slid it into the receiver. Bullets bounced off his body armor and deflected off his helmet.

They swarmed toward the storefront as the buildings outside burned, human silhouettes visible against orange and yellow flames. Their mismatched fatigues were almost uniformly drab and dark, and the glittering light reflecting off their goggles gave them an inhuman look. They were screaming and chanting, prayers and litanies of hate as they sprayed small arms fire into the building from the hip, chunks of masonry and chalk dust filling the air and backlit like bloody, choking mist.

Corporal Colt sprayed the window with three rapid bursts, cutting down that many Nod militia as they tried to clamber over the window sill. Others fired blindly over the tops of cars or stood up, pouring automatic fire at the squad. Lancaster and Gutierrez cut them down as they stood. In the midst of the screaming and gunfire and explosions, Colt heard a thoomp sound, and a half-dozen Nod fanatics were engulfed in a cloud of tearing shrapnel, courtesy of Penlan's grenade launcher.

The room was backlit by their strobing gunfire, all the lights already blown out or turned off. The chamber was filled with the screams of the dying, barely audible over the roar of blazing rifles. Through his rebreather, Colt caught a whiff of the scents filling the chamber: cordite, gunpowder, sweat and blood, and the pungent stink of feces. Someone, Nod or maybe one of his own people, must have shat themselves during the mad exchange of gunfire; it was too early for the stench of corpse-shit to make itself known.

The storefront erupted with a volley of gunfire as Russell finally finished laying a new belt in his GDM-12, and several more Nod troops dropped outside, machinegun fire scything through them. Nearly fifteen bodies had piled up outside as the militia tried to storm their position.

Outside, Colt saw plenty more, at least a platoon-sized force, and rolling up behind them was a Scorpion tank. Beside it was a boxy Reckoner, firing slits open and flashes of gunfire erupting from within.

The platoon network was in chaos, voices screeching over Colt's tactical radio. Half of their troops were dead, and their tanks, Pitbulls, and APCs had been killed in minutes. Nod infantry were overrunning their position, and-

"Grenade!" Colt shouted. Two frag grenades flew into the room, and the troopers immediately ducked for cover. They detonated, hurling shrapnel about the room, pockmarking the walls and ceiling. Colt rose as soon as it was safe, shouldering his rifle.

Nod soldiers were scrambling up into the building in the brief gap they'd received, and Colt shot down two of them. Russell hosed the entrance again, catching another man, but by that time more were swarming in through the windows or front door, firing as they came. Lancaster drilled one through the neck with a quick shot, and Gutierrez dropped another with a burst to the torso. One caught a grenade shell in the face as he rose, and his head snapped back, face pulverized. Penlan fired her rifle, cursing, finishing the stricken soldier off.

"We need to fall back!" Colt shouted. "Russell, cover! Penlan, Gut, Lancaster, retreat! Fire and maneuver!"

There was a doorway at the back of the store, that he knew would lead into a rear area, a series of storerooms, and then outside. As Russell swept the entrances to the store with his machinegun, Colt spun and picked off any Nod troopers sticking their heads up when the barrage passed. Behind them, the rest of the squad fell back one by one through the door.

"You're covered!" Lancaster yelled. "Pull back!"

"Flash out!" Colt said, pulling a stun grenade from his vest and flinging it toward the Nod troops. He and Russell ducked and closed their eyes, and then a shocking burst of sonic power hammered them, along with a flare of light that would put the sun to shame. Incoming fire slackened off for a second, accompanied by cries of pain from the blinded and deafened Nod soldiers who had been trying to clamber into the room.

Colt and Russell could have reaped a horrible tally on the enemy in that moment, but it would only take a few seconds for the Nod militia - likely hopped up on pain-deadening drugs anyway - to recover. They had to use every second, and both men fell back into the door at the rear of the store. They rushed past Lancaster, who was potting away, picking off two Nod troops with quick cracks of his rifle. As they ran into the room, Colt snapped a hand up to his vest, pulling a smart claymore from a pouch and slapping it on the wall. A flick of a switch gave it a two-second delay in its detonation after detecting hostiles.

"Go, go!" he yelled, pointing toward the rear of the building.

A couple of seconds later, the squad was sweeping out into the alley behind the building, calling all-clears as they moved into the relatively fresh air. Colt checked his HUD, pulling up a local map, and found the battalion network was in chaos. Superimposed over the map were dozens of rapidly flashing reports from all along the defense line as Nod hurled literally thousands of troops at their positions.

"This way," Colt ordered, zooming in on his map, and pointing to their right. The alley led back west toward the next phase line. They had to link back up with the rest of the platoon - or any GDI troops in the area they could find. "Gut, take point. Lancaster, Russell, security on our six. Penlan, watch the windows. Move."

* * *

They must have found a suitable building, because the smells of violence and death outside suddenly became muted, and the sounds of distant conflict faded away, replaced by the tight sounds of troops moving through corridors and stairwells.

Sandra Telfair counted at least three flights of stairs as the Black Hand led her up into the building, and then two quick right turns in rapid succession. A door opened, and she was pushed inside, and then it closed behind her.

Okay, she thought, stilling her breath. Take stock of your surroundings. The hood was still blocking out everything around her, so she would have to rely on other senses. Not much light filtered in through the fabric, but outside it was completely dark, meaning she had been dumped into an unlit room. She knelt down, and quickly found that the floor was made of carpet. Rising, she cautiously stepped around the darkened room, feeling the walls with her hands. They were painted, judging by the texture, and the room didn't seem very large as she moved around.

Something bumped her leg, and she tipped over, falling unceremoniously to the floor. Cursing quietly, she felt around, and touched cardboard. It was a cardboard box, and there was the tinkle of aluminum inside of it. heavy and weighty.

She frowned underneath the hood. A box of soft drinks. The Black Hand must have dumped her in a closet in some random apartment.

She had a rough idea of where she was, recounting her steps and the number of turns they'd made. Third level of the building, not too far from the stairwell. At least twenty troops, including a squad of Black Hand. Unknown numbers of Nod troops in the area, no idea if there were GDI reinforcements nearby.

Sandra paused in that line of thinking. Why bring her here? Why not simply withdraw to the nearest friendly Nod unit?

The answer: there were none. This was a small unit, moving inside GDI-controlled territory, or at least an unsecured area. They were holing up and waiting for Nod to come to them to pick up their prisoner.

That meant she only had a limited amount of time, and the exact amount was uncertain. She could have less than an hour, she could have a week. Assuming the worst-case scenario, the lieutenant's mind began to work furiously as she tried to come up with an escape plan.

There were footsteps nearby, solid and heavy, and light flashed into the hood. She froze in place, and a moment later the hood was pulled off of her head. Cool air touched her face, and she blinked for a few moments in the brighter illumination.

Looming overhead, glaring down at her with glittering red optics, was one of the Black Hands. She froze in place, biting back the reflexive fear she felt at seeing the man standing over her.

The Hand crouched, cape billowing and spreading out on the floor, and one of his hands rose, holding a thin data card. Without looking at it, Sandra knew it was her military ID.

"First Lieutenant Sandra Telfair, GDI InOps." The voice was that same cold, filtered, emotionless tone that she'd heard in the street not an hour before, demanding her surrender. "Personal intelligence aide to General Jack Granger."

The Hand stared at her, and she found she couldn't match his faceless, damning gaze. Sandra lowered her eyes and broke contact.

"Yes," she breathed. No sense in denying anything now.

"You are a prisoner of the Brotherhood of Nod," the Hand explained. "You will remain here under guard. You will not be harmed by my troops so long as you remain under our detainment. Do not try to resist or escape, or there will be unpleasant consequences. Do you understand?"

She nodded. The Hand rose, pocketing her ID.

"You will soon be transported to a Nod holding facility. Your status as an intelligence officer and personal aide to a senior officer will result in your being a high priority for interrogation." The Hand paused. "I would suggest you cooperate at that time. Resisting the Confessors is a futile and self-destructive gesture."

With that, the Hand pulled out the hood again and pulled it down over her head. Suffocating blackness blocked out all her vision, and she could hear the Hand as he turned and stepped outside, leaving Sandra alone in the darkness.

* * *

Rifle rounds deflected off his armor, hammering him with the force of rapid-fire heavy punches, and Sergeant Harren Bendis dropped back down behind cover. Crouching, he slithered forward along the low wall he was crouching behind. Twenty feet away, an explosion hammered the nearest APC, blowing it apart in a plume of expanding smoke and ignited fuel. Chunks of blackened armor whipped about, decapitating one man caught out in the open.

Ten meters down, Bendis rose again, sighting down his weapon, and hunted for a target.

Nod soldiers were charging down the street, intermixed with the caped forms of Confessors. The light militia were being cut down, taking the brunt of interlocked zones of fire from multiple machinegun emplacements, but they pressed on, screaming, shouting, chanting like madmen. Bendis saw one man nearly sliced in half by the dual .50 cal cannons on an APC, but he kept crawling forward, shouting and firing his rifle one-handed as he traced a wide streak of dark blood along the glassy road.

Combat stims, Bendis thought grimly as his rifle ran empty and he fumbled for a new magazine. The shit the Noddies pumped into their bodies was like epinephrine from hell. Not only did it keep their hearts beating, but it also oxygenated their cells, enabling them to survive for more than a minute after complete heart failure. Some militia would keep on fighting when they were quite literally clinically dead.

There was too much dust in the air, a maddening mixture of drifting white powder and black smoke that rendered starlight scopes, infrared, and the standard issue Mark I Eyeball equally useless. Every ten seconds or so a blinding column of ruby light would slash through the haze, incinerating any vehicles or troops who were in its path.

Under the covering fire of their Avatar, Nod was rushing forward in the chaos, their Reckoner APCs rolling up the streets while suicidal squads of fanatical Nod soldiers tied up the front lines. Bendis saw the most dedicated - or in his eyes _insane_ - Nod troops charging at the GDI lines with bombs strapped to their chests. Incoming fire slashed past the fanatics as Nod troops laid down a wall of bullets and rockets, an inaccurate river of firepower that forced the entrenched and battered GDI troops to take cover and shoot back more conservatively.

In an instant, Bendis realized the simple Nod strategy as the fanatics swarmed toward his position, bulling through GDI gunfire like it was a bloody, crimson spring shower. A dozen of them had dropped or tumbled, legs and arms torn apart by machinegun fire, but the majority kept coming, ignoring center-mass shots with a mixture of zealotry, laughter, and euphoric drugs.

The Nod troops were throwing men into the meatgrinder to attain fire superiority, and once established they charged suicide bombers at the GDI positions while they were pinned down.

"Target the bombers!" he screamed over the radio, firing on the charging clumps of fanatics. The Nod soldiers returned fire with pistols and sub-machineguns, poorly-aimed suppressive fire that ripped up the terrain around them but for the most part missed the defenders. "Target the bombers! Don't let them get close!"

Bendis couldn't tell how many of his men were responding in the chaos. Instead, he sighted the closest suicide bomber.

He fired two quick bursts into the closest fanatic, only to see the man barely stumble, even as blood burst from ragged holes in his chest. Bendis shifted his aim up a hair, sighting the man's head in his scope, and fired again. This time he dropped; even Nod's pain-killing stimulants didn't work on a brain that had been splattered.

He shifted aim, cursing as he did so. Scoring a head shot like that was a lot harder than it sounded, and he knew that even a direct hit to the skull might not drop these lunatics; they seemed to barely notice when their jaws were ripped off by automatic gunfire, let alone rounds to the neck or face.

Two of the lunatics were running straight toward Bendis' position, their sub-machineguns expended. They continued to wave them and fire as they charged, as if not even aware they were empty.

Bendis dropped his aim and fired twice, hitting one man in the knee on the second burst. The bomber fell to the pavement, and started crawling forward. The second bomber pressed on, and Bendis fired again, hitting the man in the stomach and torso. He walked his fire up the fanatic's chest until he got a shot into the Nod soldier's mouth and nose. The rounds burst through his skull and blew out the back of his head, ripping apart his brain stem. He flopped into the pavement and lay limp.

As the fanatic fell, Bendis spotted a flash of light and a plume of smoke down the street, and ducked behind the wall immediately. A rocket-propelled grenade streaked past overhead, blowing up against the side of a building a dozen meters away. Shrapnel flew about, deflecting off the wall and skipping off his heavy body armor.

The sergeant popped his magazine out and checked it. Six rounds left. He dropped the box and loaded a second magazine into the rifle, and shouldered it as he rose up behind the wall.

Three more fanatics were charging his position, firing their pistols and lone submachinegun wildly, and only a couple dozen meters away. Cursing in surprise and fear, he fired a quick burst that tore one man's shoulder to ribbons. He kept charging, and Bendis shifted aim to his head and neck, firing again. Three rounds ripped apart the lower half of his face, and a second burst cut through his nose and eyes. As the fanatic fell, blood erupting from his ruined skull, Bendis spun, shooting again. Rounds punched through the next man's torso, and Bendis walked his rounds down the fanatic's gut. Another burst tore through his hips, and the soldier twisted awkwardly, surprise and confusion appearing on his face as his legs stopped working.

The third man was only ten meters away when Bendis turned to fire. As the sergeant squeezed the trigger, he saw the Nod trooper raising his left hand, holding the detonator for his vest high, thumb settled over the trigger.

Over the course of what felt like an hour, Bendis watched the fanatic's finger depress the trigger for his suicide vest, a look of exultation filling his features, and then there was only noise.

* * *

Phase Line Bravo was one hundred and twenty meters ahead, around two corners. He could already see on his HUD that at least two platoons had fallen back to that point, and could hear the chaos up ahead. The GDI forces were rallying against the unexpectedly ferocious assault.

Colt's squad was moving down a back road behind a gas station tucked in beside some shops. To their front was a small parking lot, littered with abandoned cars. To their right was the main building of the gas station, and their left was taken up by the wall of another apartment building, looming up overhead. The area was backlit by blazing fires somewhere past the gas station, which was playing merry hell with Colt's night-optics.

He was right behind Gutierrez. The point man was covering twelve to two o'clock, while Colt covered ten to twelve. Penlan still had her eyes high, while Russell and Lancaster kept the rears and sides covered. They moved and flowed and turned to cover all approaches with the ease of rote muscle memory ingrained in them from the first days of GDI boot camp.

There was a flash of light overhead, dazzling Colt's starlight scope, and he grunted. He reached up with his left hand and switched to thermal. The world went from green and black to black and white, with black set to hot. The Corporal preferred his infrared to look that way - the surreal nature of it helped him spot things out of the ordinary.

Ahead, he caught a blob of heat by one of the cars. Both Colt and Gut shouldered their weapons to move-to-contact, a flick of a wrist from firing position.

The blob resolved itself into a human shape, and it held something white in its hands, long and slender.

Colt snapped his weapon up, achieving sight alignment. The rest of the squad snapped their weapons up, in one motion. Behind the human shape, the corporal made out other forms, also carrying weapons, mismatched. Their webbing, gear, goggles, and fatigues were also nonstandard and bore no resemblance to any GDI uniform.

Colt squeezed the rifle's trigger. Three 7.62x51mm rounds punched through the man's chest, and he jerked back, letting out a cry of shock and pain. The report of his gunshots filled the alley.

There was a dumpster to his left, two meters away. A car parked in the back street to their right, four meters away. Some concrete barriers back about five meters. Colt sidestepped behind the dumpster, firing another burst that shattered a car window. Gut ducked right, behind the car, firing two bursts of suppression fire. Penlan's grenade launcher _thunked_ another shell out, detonating against a car door and obliterating the glass. She ducked in behind Colt. Russell and Lancaster dove for the barrier, the PFC's GDM-12 opening up.

One and a half seconds had passed since Colt had seen the blob of black heat.

He counted at least a squad-sized element directly ahead, six to ten men, all behind the cover of the cars about sixty meters ahead. There was a single crack amidst the tumult of gunfire, and Colt revised his estimate down by one; Lancaster's marksmanship proved itself again.

"Lancaster, secure our six!" Colt ordered, looking around the alley for a way out of this ambush. Nod troops would pin them down, hold them in place, and probably move another squad up to flank them. He knew they were being pursued from behind, so they were running on borrowed time.

Across the alley was a service entrance to the gas station.

"Russell, Penlan, suppression!" Colt ordered, and dropped into a crouch. Russell rose, and his GDM-12 went cyclic, spraying gunfire toward the enemy. Penlan dropped another 40mm grenade into the enemy, killing one man. Colt pitched forward, running in a squatting crouch underneath Russell's river of steel, and cut across the alley. He rose as he reached the door, and slapped Gut on the back. A quick hand gesture had Gut standing at his back while Colt slammed into the door with one of his combat boots. It smashed inward, and Gut stepped past Colt, sweeping the room beyond with his rifle. The two men moved in, Colt covering the right and Gut on the left.

They moved through a back storeroom, into an office, and were about to sweep into the main room of the gas station. They came around the corner and ran right into a three-man team of Nod soldiers.

They were in a line against the wall, stacked up in a breaching formation, and were in the middle of sweeping into the office when the GDI troops emerged. There was a half-second of stupefied surprise from both groups before Colt squeezed the trigger on his GD2, blowing out the chest and guts of the first man, and his left arm shot up, punching him in the upper torso and launching his shocked body backwards into his friend behind him.

Gut sidestepped, firing a burst at the Nod trooper at the rear. The rounds pulverized the man's left shoulder, and he spun around, crying out in agony before the GDI soldier ended him with a second burst.

The second man in the stack shoved the dying body of his point man back at Colt. The Nod soldier hit his rifle and knocked it down and aside. Colt's left arm lanced up, grabbing the top of his foe's weapon and wrenching it aside. In a single smooth motion, the Corporal dropped his GD2, put his hand on his holster, and snatched up his G45 sidearm. His fired as he punched the pistol toward his target, drilling three rounds into his foe's gut, chest and neck. The shocked man toppled backward and fell atop his dead squadmate.

Colt paused only to pick up his rifle and change magazines. Gut searched the rest of the room quickly, finding no other contacts, and they moved outside.

The Nod squad had its eyes and attention focused entirely on the rest of their unit on the other side of the gas station. They showed no intentions of trying to break the stalemate, as if they were expecting someone to already be flanking the pinned squad.

Instead, it was they who were being attacked from an unexpected direction, as Colt and Gut slid into cover behind a couple of parked vehicles and set up a tight, right-angle cross-fire. Two of the Nod militia were down before they even knew they were being fired on, and the momentary flash of surprised panic that hit the enemy as they realized their cover was compromised was all the GDI troops needed. Within seconds, half the Nod unit was down, and the rest were trying to fall back. Caught in the sudden, deadly accurate crossfire from the split GDI teams, they were cut down in a matter of moments.

Textbook.

* * *

A fresh round of Vertigo bombers swept overhead, discharging their payloads short of the Pentagon. The scattering bombs instead fell among the morass of civilian buildings, shattering apartment buildings and shopping centers, upending glassy roads and hurling down flashing holographic signs. The GDI defenders, with their hastily-assembled defensive plans quickly being dashed under the Nod onslaught, found the collapsing landscape all around them cutting off escape routes and funneling them into tight corridors.

Nod light infantry swarmed into the breaches, mixed in with all-terrain bikes and buggies. In the smoke and haze thrown up by the fires and falling buildings, they advanced like cloaked ghosts, squad leaders and confessors chanting battle hymns and litanies of hatred that announced their presence and the coming death of their infidel foes.

Sergeant Thomas Carrizales slogged through dirty water that rose up past his knees, chanting along with his men and his squad's confessor. They moved through a depression, the remnants of a partially collapsed building, a severed water pipe pouring out and flooding the broken ground. He snarled as he looked upon the rushing waves of wasted water; in his home, far away in a Yellow Zone hellhole that was once El Salvador, water was a precious commodity. Here, the decadent scum were wasting it.

He shouted the next line of the chant as loudly as he could, slogging through the water with his eyes high, peering through his starlight goggles. Behind him and on all sides, the twenty-odd troops of his unit moved through the wide, spreading pool of filthy water, rifles up and voices raised. Through the goggles, they seemed like green and black blurs.

The frigid, stinking water was seeping into his boots, and soaking his pant legs. He pushed the feelings aside, knowing they would be back on dry land in a moment, and would be facing their enemies in battle again soon. Carrizales opened his mouth for the next verse, and was halfway through shouting it when he spotted a green line on his scope, and the man beside him jerked and toppled backward, blood flying through the air.

"Contact!" he screamed, dropping to one knee in the sewage and hunting for the threat. He heard shouting and yells of confusion all around him as the undisciplined militia began to react, while fireteam leaders tried to form them up. Three more troopers went down, and now that the chanting was dying down, he could hear the reports of nearby rifles.

Directly ahead, at the edge of the depression, a group of GDI soldiers were crouched and firing, clad in heavy composite battle armor. Their muzzle flashes lit up his display, and he could easily follow the lines from their infra-red laser sights using his own goggles. Carrizales raised his weapon towards them and opened fire, shouting to his troops where the enemy was located.

The water splashed and rippled on all sides as one of the GDI troops hosed his position. A sudden burst of raw agony flew through his left leg, and Carrizales dropped sideways into the sewage, a mouthful of hideous-tasting water rushing into him. Beneath the filthy wastewater, the sergeant could hear the muffled sounds of battle, explosions and gunfire and yells. He pushed himself up, hauling himself out of the water and back up, wiping his face.

The group's confessor was launching into a full-on diatribe against GDI by now, spraying their position with machinegun fire. A half-dozen of his men were dead or dying in the dirty, freezing water, and others flailed about helplessly, wounded and covered in water and excrement.

Carrizales tried to fire his weapon, but found the rifle jammed. He snarled, dropping it and drawing his sidearm. As he did so, a fresh wave of pain flashed through him from his leg. He looked down, filthy brown water dripping off his nose and hair, and saw the nasty waste was seeping into his wound. The pool of brown fluid was already darkening with his blood.

They were going to die here. Two dozen of the strong and faithful, slaughtered by a half-dozen infidels who happened to catch them off-guard.

That thought sent a rush of hatred and rage through him, and he reached down to his belt, pulling out a green vial with a long injector needle. Carrizales popped the cap off of it and jammed the needle into his thigh, hissing at the pain as the tip punctured his skin.

The pain sill bit at him for a few seconds as he listened to his men fight and die all around him, slogging forward to be cut down. Then, the noise of battle began to dull, drawing back. Carrizales looked up at his enemies, hearing a deep, rapid drumbeat in his ears, overriding all other sounds. He could acutely smell the blood and feces and cordite in the air, even as the sensations from his skin slid away.

The drumbeat grew faster, and he rose, no longer feeling pain, no longer feeling anything except his heightened sense of smell, like a hunting animal. He thought he could smell their fear, and could see a blur, indistinct but locked in his mind. Hatred began to grow within him, flaring up as he stepped through the water. Numbly, Carrizales raised his rifle.

The blurring darkness became tinged with red, and the hammer of his heart filled his head. As it pounded away, the Nod soldier found a part of him remembering the prayer chants and battle songs they had been taught, and he could recall with near-perfect clarity the verses and lines he'd recited in his temple back home. It was like the priests were right there with him, pushing him forward, their words in his ears, flowing between the rapid-fire heartbeats.

_"Peace . . . ."_

He raised his pistol and cut loose, spraying the GDI infidels with a volley of bullets as he clambered out of the muck, scrambling up the side of the depression. It was cheap, decades-old Beretta M9, but it worked for the next fifteen shots as he continued running toward the enemy. Several times he felt his vision jerk and was pushed back, and some part of his rational mind realized he had been shot repeatedly.

_"Unity . . . ."_

Carrizales didn't care - he could hear singing and chants, could taste the incense in the air. He found his pistol was only clicking, but by then he was within a dozen meters of the GDI infidels, with a half-dozen of his brothers and sisters charging alongside him. The enemy poured fire into the Nod horde as it surged toward them. Troops fell, but others pressed on, carried along by their faith and the pain-killers coursing through them.

_"Brotherhood!"_

He screamed out prayer as he dragged his knife free of its sheath before leaping over the top of one of the chunks of debris they were sheltering behind. A GDI soldier swung his rifle around, trying to beat him with the weapon's stock, and the blow slammed into Carrizles' shoulder.

_"Peace! Through! Power!"_

He didn't feel it, though a moment later he _did_ feel the warmth as he stabbed his knife into the soldier's chest, sliding it between ceramic plates and into his heart. _Wet_ and _sticky_ and_ hot_ flowed over his fingers as he ripped the knife free and stabbed it again, this time into the man's neck. He fell away, and Carrizales howled as he tumbled with his enemy. His arm pumped, and he could hear the hymns and prayers and the recordings of Kane's voice as he stabbed and stabbed.

_"Kane Lives!"_

Carrizales tore his knife free, laughing and screaming and feeling the warmth splashing over him, just as the Messiah's warmth flowed into his veins. He screamed, turning for another victim, and then he was struck by a sudden, all-encompassing flash of light.

_"Kane Lives!"_

Was this the same light he had embraced, Carrizales asked himself as the illumination struck him.

_"KANE! LIVES!"_

He never found out. All he saw was the holy light, and then, distantly, heat.

* * *

Forty meters away, standing at a window in a shell-battered apartment building, PFC Cale Winters dropped the empty grenade magazine out of his launcher, watching as the incendiary shells did their work.

More Nod soldiers were swarming out of the depression, covered in filthy water, swarming over the lifeless bodies of the slaughtered squad. He reached for a magazine of fragmentation shells, but then paused as his fingers touched a different box of grenades.

Nodding, the PFC slid the magazine into place and shouldered his launcher. A moment later, a grenade arced over the Nod troopers, and a brilliant explosion of white-hot rain screamed down over them.

White phosphorous cut through even the most euphoric drugs, he mused, and he loosed a second shell. Distantly, the grenadier could hear the fanatics' screams.

* * *

The command center was in chaos. Men and women moved back and forth, calling out reports and speaking into radios with calm, detached voices, but the dozens of speakers and the rapidly evolving situation along the front combined to create a sense of barely-controlled madness.

"We've got a breach at Phase Line Bravo Three," reported one of the NCOs from across the room. "B Company's Fourth Platoon is getting overrun. They cannot hold their position."

"I see it," Karrde replied, checking his Comcom, and seeing an Avatar and a Scorpion Platoon slamming through the barricades like they were made of glass. He frowned, highlighting his two mobile reserves. The Pitbull squadrons were providing medium-ranged mortar support, as their missiles were severely limited in the tight urban confines. He could move the individual squads to plug any breaches, but he knew that they weren't built for a slugging match with heavy armor, and all of his Predators were tied up trying to hold the line.

That left . . . .

Karrde highlighted his other mobile reserve unit and sent them orders.

Onscreen, the icon marking his only Zone Trooper platoon broke off and started jumping across the rooftops, moving to intercept.

"And someone find that _damn_ commando," Karrde hissed.

* * *

She opened her eyes, and blinked as she felt pain running up her side. Bright light stabbed down at her eyes from a lamp overhead.

"Easy, ma'am," someone spoke, and Major Jess Howell winced at the pain lancing through her head. She shook it anyway, trying to clear the cobwebs, and looked around.

She was lying on her back inside what looked like a warehouse, a medic leaning over her with a penlight. Dressings had been applied to shrapnel wounds on her flank. Dozens of men and women could be seen moving around, lugging crates and weapons, all clad in GDI uniforms. Nearby, she and several other troops had been laid out on stretchers alongside her in what looked like a makeshift infirmary.

"Where am I?" she asked, noting with relief that most of the troops wore GDI uniforms, and the rest looked like civil police or Zone Security.

"Haven't come up with a name for it, yet, ma'am," the medic replied, leaning back. "One of the recon teams found you next to your tank, and managed to get you casevac'd back here."

"Recon teams?" she asked, confused, sitting up slowly. From this position, she could see that one end of the warehouse had been turned into a vehicle garage. Three Nod assault buggies, a pair of motorcycles, and a Reckoner APC were all lined up, troops moving around them. Many were loading up the Reckoner with explosives.

Behind them all was a battered Predator tank, with a quartet of engineers working it over furiously. A mere glance by the seasoned tanker showed its treads were damaged, its turret actuator needed to be replaced, and the IR and starlight scopes were out. On the other hand, it featured a railgun mount instead of a standard smoothbore cannon, and that seemed in good order.

"Yeah, we've got recon patrols keeping an eye on our surroundings," the medic explained. "We're about a kilometer behind the main Nod advance, between their front and their support elements."

"What's going on?" she asked, stretching and testing her injuries. They protested, but not as loudly as she'd feared.

"Turning the tables, Major," replied a new voice, and Howell looked up, to see a massive, aging man with several cybernetic replacements festooning his body. He walked toward them, clad in nondescript GDI fatigues and webbing, a half-dozen weapons strapped to his body. He looked like a hero from a bad action movie.

"We're here to wreak a little havoc," said Colonel Nick Parker, grinning. "Want to join in the fun, tanker?"

Howell smiled, starting to stand.

"Any chance to get stuck back in, I'll take," she replied.

* * *

They had closed the closet door, for some reason. Sandra discovered that when she'd stumbled into it while checking the rest of the room, bumping into the wood with a loud thunk. The guards outside had immediately checked on her, which consisted of several curses and a rather vicious shove that knocked her back down to the carpet. Now she was back in the darkness, alone.

Time to take advantage of that.

As carefully and quietly as she could, she'd found the box of soft drinks again, and managed to pry the thing open - a task made infinitely harder by the way her hands were bound by the biting zip-tie. Now, she held a full can, and as silently as possible, she pulled the tab on top. It hissed faintly, and she held her breath, praying the guards outside wouldn't hear her opening it. After a couple of seconds of silence she relaxed, and finished opening the can.

Moving back into the far corner, she flipped the can over and poured it out onto the floor. The smell of the soda filled the room - orange, she thought, wishing for a drink more than anything else at that moment. As soon as the can was empty, she pushed the box over to the soda-soaked spot on the carpet and covered it up.

Now, Sandra thought, taking the empty can in hand, she had something to work with. She began to twist the aluminum as best she could, trying to work a rent in the metal Several minutes passed, the flimsy metal unyielding even as she crushed and twisted the can. She finally realized she was making progress when a line of agony shot up one her palms, as the exposed, torn edge cut her hand.

The Lieutenant gasped in surprise at the unexpected pain, and once again Sandra froze, listening intently for any reaction outside.

Nothing happened, and she went back to work, pulling and twisting the can. All she needed was a sharp enough edge, and then she could-

There was noise outside, voices and footsteps. Several men speaking quickly and in hushed tones, followed by laughter. Sandra felt a new flash of fear shoot through her - had Nod already secured the area? Were they about to move her? Her fingers began to work more furiously, ripping at the can.

The door opened suddenly, and she heard heavy footfalls as someone stepped into the room. Almost immediately, a hand, wrapped in a dirty cloth glove, shot down and grabbed her around the throat. She was lifted up and shoved back against the wall, and could hear the door closing. More laughter could be heard outside.

The hood was pulled off, and in the darkness she found herself staring into the face of one of the Nod militia, a sneering grin on his face. He leaned in close, his face marked with scars and a three-day old growth, and she could smell a breath that was tinged with the scent of an MRE.

"What a waste," the Nod soldier snarled in a Russian accent, smiling to himself, and then grabbed her shoulder. Sandra was suddenly and viciously shoved down to the floor, and as she hit, she realized what was about to happen. The hungry glare of the soldiers in the alleyway had been her warning that this was coming. She opened her mouth to shout for help, knowing somehow that the Black Hand had nothing to do with this.

The Nod trooper apparently had expected this for Sandra had barely inhaled before he'd reached down, shoving a cloth into her mouth. He quickly wrapped another cloth around it, tying the gag in place.

"You're gonna stay quiet," he snarled into her ear. "Or I might mess up that pretty face of yours, before the Confessors get to work on it." His hands reached down, fumbling along her waist, and Sandra Telfair realized she was all alone again. Trapped, about to be violated in the darkness, in this confining closet by the filthy hands of a Nod soldier, the stink of orange soda in her nostrils.

_Fuck that._

A lance of white-hot rage suddenly shot through her, and as the Nod soldier tried to grab her dress skirt, she rolled over in a single vicious spasm and kicked with all of her might, directly into the man's gut. The would-be rapist let out a shocked grunt of pain and was shoved back against the wall, impacting with a heavy thud. Sandra struggled to her feet, and right then she told herself that only _one_ of them would leave this closet alive.

The Nod soldier started to rise, clearly caught off-guard by his victim's unexpected resistance, and then found a knee slamming up into his solar plexus. The blow doubled him over, and a second impact hit him the same spot. He cried out in confused and enraged agony, dropping to his knees, and then Sandra kicked him in the temple with all of her might.

The impact snapped his head around, and the soldier rolled over, cursing and moaning. Sandra took a step closer, about to kick him again, when his hand reached out and grabbed her ankle. He twisted, and she fell hard to the floor, smacking her head on the carpet.

"GDI whore!" the Nod trooper shouted, rising just as Sandra struggled to stand again. He reached out, trying to grab her, and caught another foot to the face. He jerked back, and she kicked again, hitting the man on the shoulder. He surged forward again, catching her leg as she lashed out again and shoving it aside, and tried pinning her shoulders to the floor. He managed to grab her arms and straddle the lieutenant's waist, but Sandra shot up, slamming her forehead into the trooper's mouth.

His head jerked back, blood flying, and he let out a more in coherent scream of pain and hatred. Then, her face was rocked by a heavy impact to the cheek, and her head was smacked against the floor again. In the instant it took her to fight back through the haze, Sandra felt herself being rolled over, and a hand shoved her face against the carpet.

Incoherent curses sounded from the Nod soldier as he pinned her against the floor, even as she thrashed and cursed herself through the gag. His hands moved down, grabbing at her skirt once more-

The door _shattered_.

The wood fragments hand barely time to hit the floor when two meters of black-armored havoc smashed into the man trying to rape Sandra, hurling him against the far wall.

She heard the scrape of metal on leather, and rolled over in time to see a pistol being drawn by her attacker. Then, the Black Hand's massive gauntleted fist closed over the soldier's wrist.

"Private Josef Grigorovich."

With a casual flick, a sickening crack filled the room, and the battered rapist screamed in pain. The scream was cut off as the hand's fingers clamped over the man's mouth.

"Abandoning your assigned post," the mechanical voice said, utterly emotionless. The Hand pulled his arm back and slammed the militant's head against the wall. The room shook, and the plaster dented inward.

"Drawing a weapon on a superior officer."

The Hand smashed his victim's head against the wall. The plaster bent further inward.

"Resisting justice."

A third impact filled the room. The Hand yanked Grigorovich closer, the man's bloodied face and skull showing he'd been rendered almost insensate.

"Sexual assault on a prisoner of war. Uniform Code of Brotherhood Justice Section Two, Line Twenty-Seven. 'Any form of sexual assault of any kind by a member of the Brotherhood is considered a Class One Offense against the Messiah, punishable by summary execution.'"

The Hand turned, and dragged the battered soldier out of the room. Sandra looked up, following him as he moved past two other militia - the door guards, the realized - their hands raised and covered by another of the power-armored specters. She saw the Hand drag her attacker toward the window of the apartment, and hoist him up by both arms.

Grigorovich stammered something, a plea of some kind, but it was drowned out as the Black Hand hurled him through the window. Glass shattered, and the man flew outside. A second later, she heard a distant wet crunch.

"Two, Three," the Hand spoke quietly. "Secure the corpse." The Black Hand commander then glanced to his fellow priest, and gave a single curt nod.

Two laser beams lanced out in rapid succession, boiling away the torsos of the guards who had allowed their friend to attack Sandra. The Hands stepped over and fired two more shots into their heads. The stink of cooked flesh filled the room.

"Medical," hissed the Black Hand captain, and then he glanced toward the bewildered Lieutenant. He stepped across the room and crouched down beside her, pulling off her gag with surprisingly delicate movements of his fingers.

Those fingers were still coated in the blood of the man who would have raped her. She stared up at the terrifyingly implacable red optics, mind still trying to catch up with what had just happened. The Hand rose, but he seemed to understand her amazement.

"Discipline _will_ be enforced," Brother-Captain Allen said, simple and straightforward. "You will _not_ be harmed."

A medic was moving into the room, and the Hand stepped aside to let him pass to check on the battered lieutenant. The warrior-priest glanced at the burnt corpses, and gestured to them.

"Disposal detail," Allen said as he stepped out of the room, disappearing down the hallway.

* * *

He could feel the ground rumbling beneath him as he shook his head. Looking up, Sergeant Bendis could see that his HUD and visor were cracked. That vibration was the sound of treads.

Tanks. Scorpion tanks.

He pushed himself to his feet, reaching for his helmet catch. With a flick of a latch, he released the visor on his helmet and began to pull it off. Smoke and dust stung his eyes as the open air hit his face, and then Bendis came face-to-face with a Nod fireteam as they scrambled over the wall.

He'd dropped his rifle in the explosion. Instead, he snapped his pistol out and fired before the Nod troops had even hit the ground. One of the men twisted around, crying out in pain and surprise, and his the ground hard. The others spun toward Bendis and started firing, before he put three rounds through one Nod trooper's neck and head. The last one sprayed him with automatic fire at less than five meters, and pain erupted up and down his body as rounds tore through his left arm and both legs. Bendis hit the ground, blood pouring from his wounds and dropping his pistol in the grass.

The Nod soldier had emptied his magazine in a couple of seconds of frenzied from-the-hip fire, and was loading a second magazine when his body blew apart from the stomach up. Bendis blinked, hearing the crack of a railgun somewhere nearby, as well as the jump-jets of two dozen jetpacks all around him.

The ground shook nearby, and a half-ton of man and power armor crashed down beside the wounded sergeant, spinning to fire a two meter-long railgun at some distant threat. A moment later there was an explosion. Over the chaos, Bendis could hear the Zone Trooper speaking.

"-ultiple armor units at marker three-two-five, with company-level infantry support. At least one Avatar. Attempting to disable." A momentary pause. "Copy, Zero. Covering withdrawal to Charlie." The Trooper fired off another shot and glanced down at the wounded sergeant. "Can you walk?"

Bendis shook his head, propping himself up on his good arm.

"Get the hell out of here, we can't hold them here!" he said, but the Trooper's only response was to reach down and casually pick the wounded soldier up.

"Platoon," the Trooper called. "Fall back by pairs, cover the infantry and armor's retreat. Kill anything with treads! Regroup at Phase Line Charlie!"

* * *

"The fuck you mean, fall back?" Gut hissed as they hurried down another nondescript alley. Once again, Colt and Gutierrez were on point, with the rest of the squad covering above and to their rear. "We just reached the second line!"

"Nod's breaching on all fronts," Colt said, pausing at an intersection. They were somewhere between a series of apartment buildings and stores, all of which were showing signs of bombardment damage. Vertigo bombers cut past somewhere above, releasing another payload of cluster bombs. "Keep moving. We've got to regroup with friendlies soon or we're-"

Lancaster's head exploded.

Coilt flung himself tot he ground as he spotted the direction the laser beam had come from, a thin blue-white lance of light the scythed across the alleyway. the rest of the squad was ducking or diving behind cover as a rapid barrage of beams boiled away hunks of ceramic and brick on all sides.

Silence filled the alley, and Colt scanned down the passage with his infrared scope. Nothing came back, which immediately filled him with worry.

"Pour it on!" he shouted, even as the rest of his squad hunted for a target. Penlan's grenade launcher burped a shell down the alley, and Russell hosed the alley with machinegun fire. Gut and Colt added their own rapid-fire bursts, and within a heartbeat the entire alley was illuminated with a hundred flashing rounds and the sparking impacts of rounds tearing hunks out of masonry.

"Penlan, flare!" Colt ordered, and the grenade launcher shot another shell, this time a white phosphorous grenade that instantly lit up the entire passage for thirty meters with boiling-hot powder.

They saw nothing, and their fire slackened. Russell frantically changed his GDM-12's box and set a new belt as the rest of the squad hunted for the shooter.

"What the hell was that?" Gut whispered, and Colt's breath caught in his throat. He knew what they were up against, though he'd never fought one himself, thankfully.

"Nod commando," he breathed.

They were dead. They were all _dead._

* * *

Commander Logan Rawne sipped from a mug of coffee as he watched his pieces dance. His Avatars were advancing unopposed, crushing all before them like insects, and his infantry and light armor companies were worming their way into whatever cracks were presented in GDI's armor. He had isolated several units from the main force and were squeezing them tightly, and even though he'd lost his artillery, he had fresh units moving up. he had air superiority, and was about to move his Venoms in to support the ground assault. He had air-mobile infantry companies ready to deploy as his final nail in the coffin, once the urban territory had been cleared out.

Victory was in hand, he knew, and he paused form his battle operations to consider how he would redecorate the Pentagon's central command center. A nice shade of red, of course, though he'd make certain to install proper lighting. He'd banged his shins against the consoles too many times today.

That thought in mind, he turned back to the battle, knowing that nothing could stop him now.

* * *

Six kilometers east of the front, the world shook, and clouds of dust filled the air, obscuring everything beneath them. Pavement cracked, concrete broke, and parked vehicles were smashed underfoot. For the civilians hiding in the buildings or fleeing the fighting, it seemed as if an earthquake had suddenly struck, a tectonic upheaval accompanied by the roar of a hundred massive engines.

Colonel James Creden sat in his command couch, surrounded by the reassuring roar of engines and consoles, voices speaking in his ears as he moved toward the battle far away.

"I don't give a damn how we get there," he snarled into the radio, his British accent pushing through the static like the fist of an irate English god who had missed tea. "The Pentagon is under fire, so get us across the damn bridge! Blow up the damned cars if you have to! Or just hold up and let _us_ clear a path."

The man on the other end, a flustered lieutenant of a Pitbull platoon who'd had his bars for all of fourteen hours, hastily agreed. As the channel closed, Creden glanced at his monitors, reflexively checking his weapons displays. Cannon one, loaded. Cannon two, loaded. Missiles one, loaded and primed. Missiles two, the same. Engines, fine. Radar, pinging as usual. The rest of the armored column, smashing and bashing along right behind him.

And on his GPS display, a thousand hostile contacts, growing ever so slowly closer to the Pentagon, a tiny line of GDI troops holding them back.

"Hold on, lads," Creden whispered, predator's grin on his features. He reached up, gripping the targeting display set into his Mammoth-27's command couch. "The Second Heavy Armor is on its way to sort this out."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Why yes, that _is_ the sound of immenient carnage.

Obviously, this story is not following the game's tech tree, because honestly, the in-game tech tree is nowhere near realistic. I'm assuming that, with the exception of certain weapons explictly stated to be in development at the time, Nod and GDI have access to all their weaponry. And chronologically, Reckoners and Spectres were actually deployed prior to the war even beginning during the prequel battles in Kane's Wrath.

One of the more delicate issues I had to deal with in this chapter was the rape attempt on Telfair. That sort of nasty and reprehensible thing is all too brutally common in war, and I knew I'd have to deal with it sooner or later if I wanted to work in an accurate rendition of how war is fought. In the original version of this chapter, Telfair was actually supposed to kill Grigovich, but as I wrote it, it quickly became apparent that there was no realistic way that she could have killed him in her current condition. So, I had to rewrite that fight scene.

To answer a question that keeps popping up in reviews: Nod does not have a standard rifle. Their weapons are a seemingly-random mishmash of rifles from the mid 20th to early 21st century. They use a lot of the M16 Mark IIs from the Second Tiberium War, but also a wide range of weapons prior to that. If you've played Call of Duty 4, think of the myriad collection of rifles the Ultranationalists carry, and you've got a rough idea of what Nod's arsenal looks like.

Brownie points to anyone who can identify the poem at the top.

Until next chapter . . . .


	16. Chapter XV: Desperation

_**Chapter Fifteen: Desperation**_

_"Never."_

-Anonymous Nod soldier, when asked under what conditions he would stop fighting

The world collapsed into a single narrow tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, he saw a column of green numbers, hovering in the air, just to the left of two intersecting lines, slowly shifting as he turned a fraction of a hair.

His mind evaluated the numbers, made the adjustments, and he changed his bearing once more.

"Officer, three-ten meters. Red car."

"I see him."

For a single second, he was a statue. He waited for the gap between heartbeats, a half-second of true stillness.

The trigger was brushed with the delicacy of a seamstress' touch.

The air shattered, and his shoulder ached with dull, familiar pain as the stock slammed back against his bones.

"You got him. Right in the chest."

Sergeant "Simo" Havers dropped back behind the parapet of the building, along with his spotter.

"Let's get moving," the sniper said, and they started off to a new sniping position.

* * *

A seven centimeter-long shard of shrapnel embedded itself in the side of his helmet. Colonel Franklin, First Pentagon Guards Battalion, dropped prone as he felt the impact and rolled behind the closest available cover: one of his black-marked Guardian APCs. Once safely behind cover, he broke battlefield protocol by pulling his helmet off and ogling at the giant hunk of ceramic stuck in the side of the ash-gray helmet.

"Goddamn."

He pulled the shrapnel loose and then set the helmet back on his head. The built-in radio link was chirping.

_"Guard Actual, this is Guard Three, come in. Repeat, Guard Actual, this is Three, please come in."_

A rocket-propelled grenade screamed through the air, slamming into the flank of the Guardian APC a dozen meters ahead and exploding in a deafening shock of whipping shrapnel. The APC was shoved aside roughly, as if a giant hand had slapped it, and then stubbornly turned back along the broken road. Its dual .50 cal machineguns responded in kind, hosing the building that the missile had come from.

Colonel Franklin shook his head, chasing away the ringing from the nearby explosion and cursing the chaos before pressing his finger into the side of his helmet. He could barely hear over the clatter of the Guardian's dual cannons as they redecorated the front of the building, while a rifle squad charged toward it to breach the side door.

"Guard Three, this is Actual. Go."

_"Actual, we're taking heavy fire from fortified positions two hundred meters north of marker Two-Seven-One. Heavy support weapons, looks like shredders and a couple laser cannons. Significant infantry concentrations too. Looks like at least one company-sized force, probably more."_

"Understood, Three. Can you neutralize?"

_"We may need fire support, Actual. They're dug in, and I'm not sure I have the manpower to break through without heavy casualties."_

"Standby, Three."

Franklin checked his HUD, moving back into his command APC as he did so. He'd brought his Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie companies - Guard One, Two, and Three, respectively - with him to break, or at least pressure, the Nod forces that had circled to the north of the Pentagon. Those Nod forces were advance units that had scissored in to cut off reinforcements from the 7th Reserve Infantry Regiment from the north. Franklin had hoped the a two-front assault on the leading Nod insurgents would put enough pressure on them to allow a breakthrough. He hadn't anticipated that the Nod forces would have set up static defense emplacements this quickly.

Whoever commanded this enemy was not only smart, but efficient.

They needed fire support, he could tell right off the bat. His companies were mechanized heavy infantry geared for defense, not assault. All their armor was pulled west to slow down the Nod advance through the urbanized areas. He didn't have any immediate assets he could call on, which meant he needed to bring them in from elsewhere. That meant air power.

He didn't have control over air power. That goddamn jumped up Battle Commander, Karrde, had control over air assets, or at least had line into control of air assets.

That little shit and his fancy computers were going to get them all killed.

* * *

"Fist One, Actual, redeploy Second Platoon to Marker Three-Seven-Three. Direct mortar and missile support to suppress Nod infantry advance along Three-Six-Three to Three-Six-Five. Guard . . . uh, Guard Four. Direct mortar fire to the following coordinates. Fire for effect." He read off a string of numbers. "Ghost One, deploy Third Platoon's missiles to support Three Delta. Avenger One, come in. Avenger One, are you there? Acknowledge. Avenger One, respond."

Battle Commander Karrde was in the thick of command now. His eyes were glued to his Comcom, as he read off a string of orders to his company commanders while giving direct specifics via touchscreen to individual squad and platoon commanders. It was a critical, delicate balancing act, because he knew that in the sheer chaos of combat most men either couldn't or honestly _wouldn't_ follow specific orders, especially when fighting for their lives. The Comcom gave him the power to command individual squads right down to the fireteam, but he hesitated to command at that level.

Micromanaging this battle too much would be as bad as leaving these men leaderless. On the other hand, he needed to maximize the efficiency of his troops and cut through the fog of war. The efficiency a proper Battle Commander brought would enable a force of men to defeat an enemy ten times their size simply by cutting through the fog of war and giving them specific direction.

_"Actual, Avenger One-Three,"_ came a voice over the radio. "_One-One is effective-killed, but I'm still getting their IFF. Repeat, Actual, Avenger One is dead."_

"Copy that, One-Three," Karrde said, closing his eyes for a second. When he reopened them, the laser projector took a second to reacquire his iris. Once the images returned to his screen, he saw Avenger One's marker had changed to indicate its disabled status.

Karrde sent the remaining Avengers new orders to reinforce A Company, which had consolidated on a major road at the last phase line. Of the hundred and fifty troops in the assault company, less than eighty were still alive, and similar numbers were coming back from B and C Company. They were getting mauled out there.

A flashing icon appeared on his Comcom as he was giving orders, and a moment later he could hear his EVA in his ear.

"Incoming transmission," the AI reported. Karrde set the transmission to appear in the corner of his screen, too busy trying to keep the defense from turning to a rout.

A few seconds later, a face he didn't think he'd be happy to see appeared.

"Lieutenant James," Karrde said, and despite the situation, he managed a smile. "Good to see you."

_"Likewise, Commander,"_ Kirce James replied, her voice stillc arrying that proper, self-important tone. _"I've been busy arranging some air cover for you. I have two flights of Firehawks and a squadron of Orcas en route to the Pentagon. I'm feeding you their telemetry and codes now."_

"I could kiss you, lieutenant," Karrde said, mind racing again as he tried to factor this into his defense plans.

_"That's against fraternization regs, sir,"_ she replied, completely deadpan. He couldn't tell if she was joking or serious. _"The Firehawks will be there within the hour, and the Orcas will be right behind them."_

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Karrde said, as data spilled across the screen. He worked to sort it out, picking targets and flight paths for his air cover.

_"Is there anything else you need, sir?"_ she asked.

"A couple divisions of artillery and armor wouldn't be amiss," he joked, and James nodded.

_"I'll get on that."_ He image vanished, and Karrde felt a pit in his stomach. Was she really about to try and get him an armored division on short notice?

No, even Kirce James had to understand that was a joke.

"EVA, prepare signal," Karrde said, highlighting targets for the bombers. "Initiate phased withdrawal to the Pentagon wall."

He paused, and glanced across the room.

"Has anyone found that Nod commando, yet?"

* * *

After the dreadful realization of what they were up against, the alley became deathly still and quiet.

Colt looked around with his eyes, afraid to move his head lest that somehow trigger the commando's wrath. They were trapped in an alley with no real cover, in a perfect killing field. The commando had a high-powered laser weapon and the kind of enhancements that would let it slice through them as if they were wet tissue.

"Squad, we need to get to cover," he ordered, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

"Lancaster, he's-" Russell mumbled.

"Dead," Colt snarled. "Gut, bust a door. Everyone else, security. Now!"

The squad moved, circling as they sought fresh cover, Penlan checking the rear while Russell covered their front. Colt kept an eye up above while Gut rose and ran to a nearby door, his boot ramming into the metal. The noise of the impact sounded loud and damning inside the tight confines of the alley, while the trio of soldiers searched for the enemy commando.

After all the shit he'd been through cover the last twenty four hours, it was going to take a lot to rattle the corporal, but the presence of a Nod commando was more than enough. Inside his visor, sweat stung his eyes and ran down his cheeks, and every window and fire escape seemed to hold a shadow, waiting to pounce on them.

The door shattered inward under Gut's abuse, and he yelled to them that the way was clear. Russell rose, backing toward the door as Gut moved inside, and both men swept the room beyond.

"Room clear!" Gut called, and Colt hissed for Penlan to move. She started to rise and back toward the door while Colt spun to cover their rear.

A thin, blue-white flash ripped down the alley, from somewhere up above, and Penlan dropped to one knee. She kneeled there for a second, confused, and Colt spun back toward her just as she looked down at her leg.

"I'm . . . hit?"

Her left thigh showed a sizzling hole, where a laser beam had lanced straight through her leg.

"What the shit?" she said, confused. "I'm . . . fuck! Fuck, I'm hit!" She jerked, as if staring at the wound had made her finally realize she was supposed to be _hurt_, and let out an agonized cry. Colt spun and grabbed her with one arm as she fell to the side, lifting her up on his shoulder. Russell emerged from inside the building and sprayed the alleyway while Colt rushed inside, mind racing.

He'd seen the power of that laser weapon; it had blown Lancaster's head to pieces, and should have severed Penlan's leg clean off, instead of burning a neat hole in her thigh armor. The Nod commando had to have a clear line of sight on the whole of the squad, too, judging by the angle of fire, but had only fired once.

The terror welling up inside Colt's chest grew as he understood.

The commando wounded Penlan to slow them down and force them into cover. Now that they were in cover, they were trapped. She had taken the initiative.

She was _hunting_ them.

* * *

"Goddammit!" The medic jerked at the yell. "Where the fuck did you learn field medicine? Butcher school?"

Sergeant Harren Bendis was not feeling good. A medic was furiously working on his leg, while missiles land laser fire screamed by overhead. Men were being carted past, some loaded into civilian vehicles that had been appropriated by GDI troops. Others were trading fire with the advancing Nod soldiers. He could hear the crack of Zone Trooper rifles as they punished the Nod armored advance. Buckets of blood were spreading across the glassy, rubble-strewn streets.

"Sorry, sir, I-"

"Sir? I work for a living, dammit!" Bendis snarled. The medic seemed to recoil again, and the sergeant wondered how old the kid was. Probably fresh from boot, most likely. Grunting as he felt another spike of pain shoot up his leg, Bendis focused his attention on his platoon's network, which was in absolute chaos.

He guessed he had maybe fifty percent combat-capable troops left in his unit. Everyone else was wounded or dead. The platoon sergeant and their lieutenant were dead, too. That left the squad sergeants, which consisted of Bendis and Sergeant Wade.

"Wade!" he yelled over the radio. "Wade, this is Bendy! Pick up!"

_"Bendy!"_ Wade replied immediately. _"Heard you bit it at the last line!"_

"Fuck that," Bendis growled. "Wade, company says we're doing another withdrawal. Am I hearing that right?"

_"You are, man,"_ Wade replied, and a staccato of gunfire sounded from his end.

"We withdraw now and Nod will be up our asses like a twink on viagra," Bendis hissed. "Someone's gotta cover our six!"

_"Suicide detail, Bendis,"_ Wade replied.

"I know, I know," he said, and the medic finished bandaging his leg. "Private, get me up." The medic hesitated, and then reached down, lifting his wounded sergeant up onto his shoulder. "There. That apartment. Get me to the second floor."

"Sarge?" the medic asked, confused.

"Second floor, goddammit," Bendis hissed, and looked around. "Hey! I need a SAW!"

One of the nearby troopers hurried over, carrying a pair of GD2s slung over his shoulder and a GDM-12 in hand. Kid was probably on weapon collection detail, scavenging all the rifles and other gear off downed troops.

"Here, Sarge," the PFC said, handing him the weapon and a satchel of box magazines. "One-eighty in the mag, three boxes inside."

"Thanks," Bendis said, handing the PFC his own rifle. "Okay, get me upstairs. I got a squad up there."

The medic helped him up the stairwell, and Bendis walked gingerly on his wounded leg. Spikes of pain beat against his muscles and bone. At his order, they veered into an apartment a few doors down. He could hear gunfire rattling in other rooms, echoing off the plaster and wood. Brass tinkled somewhere nearby.

"Here, here," Bendis ordered, gesturing to a window. He reached over and snagged a wooden chair, setting it by the windowsill, and plopped down in it.

"You okay, sergeant?" the medic asked, and Bendis nodded, raising the GDM-12. He looked out the window as he lowered the bipod, and set the box magazines on the sill beside his weapon.

"Yeah, son, I am," he replied. "Get back out there. Worse people off than me." The medic hesitated again, and he waved dismissively. "You got orders, Private! Move it!" The kid nodded and hurried out of the room, and Bendis grunted. He had a good field of fire here.

He was wounded, and effectively immobilized, but the sergeant knew he could still man a fire point, and he had plenty of ammo.

Pressing the stock to his shoulder, Bendis let rip a teeth-rattling burst at the enemy.

* * *

He heard sniffling in the next room.

Corporal Damon Goodman frowned, his rifle bouncing unhappily in his hands as he stood in the opulent little Blue Zone bedroom. There were carpets and a mirror and a bed with real springs in the mattress, which he had never seen before he'd set foot in this place. Back in Dallas, they hadn't had any of that except in the warlords' homes and the officers' quarters. Goodman wanted to just lay down and take a quick nap, but he knew he couldn't do that, not considering how dangerous this area was and what had happened less than half an hour ago.

Word circulated fast, and every soldier was checking their _Brotherly Guidance Primer (Abridged)_ to make sure they were fully aware of the rules. Summary executions had that effect, and more than half the unit had never even read a Primer before. A good portion of the troops had to have it read aloud to them, as elementary schooling wasn't universal in the Zones.

One thing was for certain: none of them was going to go in that closet except to care for the prisoner. Goodman himself was about to bring her rations in a few minutes, but other than that, no one was to go inside.

Goodman and his squadmate, Private Somers, had been assigned to guard her based on their understanding of the rules of conduct and their faith. They were the highest-scorers on both of those in their squad, and had been chosen by the Hands to stand guard - especially with the previous guards' corpses dumped in the basement. The Hands had been very explicit: they had orders to shoot anyone else trying to get into the closet without a Hand attending them.

The corporal leaned back against the wall, still shocked by everything that had happened today. He knew that this day had been coming, but it still amazed him to be part of just retribution. And the honor of fighting alongside a Black Hand unit . . . .

His watch beeped, and Goodman looked down at it. It was close to morning, which meant it was time to give the prisoner her rations. He had no idea how long it would take before reinforcements arrived or the Hands would opt to pull out and get to more secure areas; there were reports that GDI was mobilizing a counterattack to the east, and they were in a precarious position.

"Somers, watch the door," he ordered, rising, legs aching from all the running they'd done that day. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed the spare rations he'd been given. As his buddy turned to cover the entrance to the room, Goodman walked into the closet.

The power was out, so he scanned the little room with his flashlight. There was a slightly fruity smell to the makeshift cell, but he couldn't place its exact origins. The beam swept down, and passed over the bound woman on the floor.

She was sitting with her back to the wall, curled up, hair matted with blood and face bruised and scratched. Even so, she was still pretty good looking - in fact, downright beautiful, by Goodman's standards. She looked up at him as he stepped into the room and crouched in front of her, and seemed to recoil, fear crossing her features. She mumbled something, but the gag in her mouth - something the Hands had decided to keep as a precaution - drowned out most of it.

Goodman winced, understanding her fear. She'd almost been raped a few hours ago, after all. Even though she was GDI, what those men would have done to her was unforgivable, and she didn't deserve it. Hell, she was just a soldier like him, and he could sympathize.

"Hey, relax," he said, and reached up toward her face. She recoiled again, trying to get away from him, and her back thumped against the wall. Grunting, Goodman reached forward and grabbed her shoulder.

"Hey, quit it, I'm not gonna hurt you," he growled, and his other hand rose, looping inside her gag and pulling it off. She gasped, and stared at him as if confused, and the frightened look remained in her eyes.

"Meal time," he said, holding up the disc-shaped MRE. She looked down at the rations, and then up at him, and visibly relaxed. Goodman peeled off the top of the box, and looked inside.

"Eh, just protein and what passes for carbs," he muttered, looking at the quartet of semi-edible hard-tack bars. He picked one of the edible wafers up and held it toward her.

She glanced at it, and then at him, and then back at the wafer as if it was going to bite her.

"Open up," Goodman said. She stared back. "Speak English, don't you? Open up. I'm not gonna cut you loose just so you can feed yourself."

Finally, the woman leaned forward and took a bite out of the wafer. Immediately, she made a face of confused disgust, but chewed anyway.

"Yeah, not up to your Blue Zone cuisine, I know," he said, shrugging. The things tasted like someone had sprinkled salt on cardboard. A few moments' silence passed as she ate the rest of the wafer, and he fished out another bar of energy-protein. She ate that one with a little more speed; she had to be as hungry as any of them, though he was surprised she'd be willing to eat after . . . .

As he pulled out another wafer, he spoke.

"This is kind of weird for me to say, considering, you know, you're the enemy and all," he said as she ate the next bar. Her eyes rose, meeting his, and wary curiosity sparked in them. "Sorry. About, you know, that bastard. Not all of us are like that."

She stared back, chewing slowly, as if she couldn't understand what he was saying. Or rather, didn't understand how someone like _him_ could be saying that to her. Yeah, she had a pre-formed opinion about Nod troops, but then, they had plenty of pre-formed opinions about GDI soldiers too.

Fifty years of war did that.

"You won't need to worry about that anymore. I've got orders to shoot anyone who tries to come in here and do that again," he added, and she slowly nodded, taking another bite out of the bar. He let her chew that, and also chew on that bit, and she finished the third piece of food. Goodman pulled the last bar out, waited for her to finish, and offered it to her.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" he asked, and she shook her head. "I mean, more than he . . . sorry. I shouldn't be talking to you like this anyway. I'll shut up now, for my own sake."

She continued eating, and finished off the last bar. She chewed and swallowed, and soon as she was done, he gave her a flask of water. She drank from it, almost gulping it down, and he had to pull it away before she used it all up.

"Hey, you do that, and you'll have to piss before we move you again," he muttered. "I'm not going to handle that, either. You'd just have to go in here."

She sighed, and then recoiled again as he pulled her gag back up. She tried to protest before he stuffed the cloth back into her mouth.

"_Quiet. _Gotta do this. Can't have you crying for help."

She moved her head back and forth as he refastened the gag, and he grunted as he got finished.

"Okay, relax," Goodman muttered, standing up. "Get comfortable. I don't know how long you'll be in here." With that, he turned off his lamp and turned to leave.

There was a rustle of movement behind him, probably the woman trying to get more comfortable-

A hand rose up, clamping over his mouth, and he felt something else circle around his neck. Pain lanced up through it, across his throat, and he felt a sudden horrible wet warmth pouring down his chest.

He could hear her breathing, feel cold, jagged metal slide across his neck, and then he was being yanked backwards.

Goodman was caught so off-guard it took a few seconds for his training to kick in. But by that time, he was unbalanced, and was being yanked off his feet, a hand clamping down and muffling his gasps of shock, and blackness began spreading across his sight.

_Cut my throat. She cut my . . . ._

He heard a call outside, and saw Somers stepping back into the room, raising his flashlight, and then Goodman felt the weight of his rifle vanish from his back. Even as he tried to roll over, his blood pouring out of his veins, he saw the woman raising his rifle. She fired, loosing a frighteningly loud burst of bullets in the confined closet.

Her face, backlit by the muzzle flash, showed a strange mix of terror and sadness. Goodman could swear he could see tears in her eyes.

His hand fumbled to his side, grabbing for his sidearm.

Then there was silence. A single heartbeat that spread out for a year, it seemed. The woman reached up and yanked her gag off, and then looked down toward Goodman.

He was raising the pistol, the weapon shaking in his hand, and had it trained on her. He guessed he could probably put a bullet in her leg, stop her from escaping.

He was dying. He knew it. She'd slit his throat with something metallic, something she must have found and cut herself loose with. He understood that, and it somehow seemed terribly important that he'd figured out his mistake. Should have checked her hands. Should have made sure her bonds were secure.

She looked down at him, and he could see the nauseated pain in her eyes, that horrible look a person gets when they take another's life. In the potent silence, he could hear her sniffle.

Goodman lowered the pistol, and it clattered to the carpet from fingers that were going slack.

In that instant, that twilight moment before death, he felt a kinship with her, a strange intimacy that could only exist between a victim and their killer in close quarters.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, the first words he'd ever heard her speak. She had a nice voice. _Soft_.

Goodman blinked, gasped, and nodded.

It was okay. He understood. She was his enemy. He couldn't blame her.

Distantly, he heard shouting below, and the noise shattered the spell. She stepped out of the room, and darkness rose up to swallow Corporal Damon Goodman.

* * *

"You see that?"

Havers frowned, looking up from his rifle's scope.

"What?"

Terrence lay beside him, peering through his spotter scope as they lay atop a roof, ghillie suits draped over their bodies. Havers' spotter was silent for a moment, deep in concentration.

"Laser fire, three hundred meters northeast."

Havers poked his eyes into his scope, scanning the area.

"I don't-" he stopped as a flash of blue-white light was briefly visible.

"That's not standard Nod laser fire," Havers whispered.

"Move up, check the area?" Terrence asked. The sniper considered his options, and nodded.

"Let's have a quick look. Next apartment should give us a better field of view."

With that, the two snipers rose, barely visible in the smoky pre-dawn gloom, and started moving.

* * *

" . . . and I don't give a damn about the fucking collateral damage. I've got three million people to my arse who are going to be eating out Kane's crotch if we don't stop Nod, so blow the fuckers to shit and toss the rest."

Colonel James Creden, GDI First Mechanized Regiment, Second Heavy Armor Division, was not having a pleasant day. That was mostly because every thirty seconds some tosser was jumping on his radio screaming about Nod insurgents or broken glass in their boots or their lemonade tasting like piss or some shit. He was sitting in the heart of twenty hundred-plus ton behemoths that represented the pinnacle of mankind's ever-advancing quest to crush their enemies' scrotums with their boots, and he had to deal with tank commanders who had never been fired upon before crying out alerts at every sinister-looking person who wore dark clothing.

For once, he wished he had a goddamn EVA of his own to sort out the whiners from the relevant talk.

Through the ever present roar of his war wagon's engine and the hiss of machinery, Creden grabbed his radio and switched to another channel.

"Hammer Actual to Hammer One, over," Creden snarled into his radio. Hammer One was Lieutenant Colonel Rossi, Creden's second in command of Heavy Two's First Mechanized Regiment, a blunt and straightforward man whose Mammoth-27 had been ironically named _"Plaited Daisies."_ He came back quickly.

_"Hammer One, receiving."_

"How far are we from the bridge, One?"

_"Estimate an hour or more. Heavy resistance on the way, Actual."_

"What kind of resistance, One?"

_"Small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Local police forces and ZoneSec are tied down. They have no mechanized or light infantry support."_

"Bloody hell, Rossi, don't slow down for that shite. Tell the fucking bobbies that we've got more important things to worry about than shemag-wearing Nod militia taking potshots with rifles. Last report from Pentagon had them facing at least nine Avatars and division-strength Nod forces. We've got two mechanized infantry units trailing us, they'll drop a few companies to help secure this sector."

_"Understood, Actual. I'll relay the message."_

"Good man. Actual out."

Creden went back to his data displays, listening with one ear to the call-and-return of the seven-man crew operating the Mammoth-27 around him.

The Second Heavy Armor was one of the best-trained and well-equipped armored divisions in the Global Defense Initiative. It consisted of six regiments, each of which consisted of six battalions. Two of the battalions were support, two were mixtures of mechanized infantry and armor, and the remaining two were full armor battalions. Each full armor battalion had six companies: three of mixed Predator MBTs, Pitbulls, Slingshots, and Shatter SBTs, and three more consisting of Mammoth-27 HBTs. Each Mammoth company had thirty of the HBTs. Regimental command sections had another forty, twenty under the regimental commander and twenty under the regiment commander's second.

The arithmetic was quite simple. The GDI Second Heavy Armor Division fielded well past a _thousand_ Mammoth-27s.

"Kick in the balls" did not _begin_ to describe what awaited anyone stupid enough to get in their way.

The tank suddenly lurched to a halt, and Creden snarled a curse.

"The fuck did we stop for? Are we taking a _piss_ or are we _taking_ a piss?"

"Colonel, we're taking fire from a building three hundred meters west, sir," his tank commander reported.

"What kind of fire?" Creden demanded, fury rising. He could distantly hear ringing on the outer hull.

"Small arms and machinegun fire, sir," replied the commander, and Creden hissed between his teeth.

"Company," he yelled into his radio. "Identify incoming fire and address!"

Acknowledgements came over the radio, and Creden nodded to his commander, who started barking commands to the gunners. The turret rotated slightly, and Creden checked the scopes.

Fire was coming from a couple of buildings down the road, about three hundred and forty meters away. He shook his head at the madness of using rifles and machineguns against tanks, let alone virtual land battleships. They might as well have been trying to dickbox the Mammoths to death.

"Optimistic bastards," the gunner reported. "Target acquired,"

"Fire!"

A thousand windows shattered as Creden's Mammoth loosed two railgun shells, cracking the sound barrier with enough force to deafen unprotected passers-by. The shells screamed through the air so quickly they ignited water vapor, creating clouds of steam as they split the night.

The building withstood the impacts like a sand castle withstood being kicked by an irate god.

"Gun one, up."

"Gun two, up."

"Get a move on, lads," Creden said, smiling, as his gunners reported the autoloaders' operations. "I plan to do a lot more of that tonight."

* * *

"I hear her," Gut whispered.

Colt was working to bandage Penlan's leg, and could barely hear Gut over the soldier's moaning.

"Come again?" he asked.

"I think I hear her," hissed Gut, standing by the door into the back room. They'd brought Penlan as far back into the building as they could, into an old boiler room in the basement. Russell was checking the entrances while Gut pulled security on the doorway. The hallway outside was covered by two smart claymores.

"The commando?" Colt asked, trying to fight back his own fear. Their only hope was that the commando didn't come in looking for them. Barring that, they could set an ambush for her. He knew that close-quarters like these played to some of the commando's strengths, but they also removed other advantages, like speed, mobility, and distance.

_"Colt, entrances are clear. Claymores set. Heading back."_

"Copy," Colt replied over the radio, and finished setting Penlan's bandages. Set was sitting back against the wall, cursing quietly, holding Colt's GD2. The corporal had taken her weapon and the grenade launcher mounted on its underside, though she only had three 40mm shells left for it.

"You got in touch with battalion yet?" Gut asked. Colt could hear the apprehension in his voice.

"No. Radio's out. Not sure if its jamming or just dead." Colt checked his HUD, and shook his head. "Can't get an uplink with EVA. We're stuck."

"Maybe we could get on the rooftop, boost the signal-"

Gunfire screamed down the corridor outside, and three rifles rose to cover the entrance.

_"Contact!"_ Russell shouted. _"Contact commando! Jesus, fuck!"_ His GDM-12 roared again, and they could hear boots charging their way.

"Where is she?" Colt demanded, rushing to the door beside Gut, who was covering one side of the hallway.

_"Right behi-"_ a scream of pain filled his earpiece, mixed with the hiss of a firing laser.

"Russell!" Colt shouted. "Russell!"

_"My leg. Fuck, she got my leg!"_

"Hold tight, I'm coming!" Colt called.

"Whoa, what the fuck-" Gut was saying, but the corporal gestured to Penlan.

"Cover her. There's only one way into that room. I'm not back in ten with Russell, or I go down, lock that door and hold out, understand?"

Gut hesitated, and Colt could imagine the expression behind his mask and visor.

"Do you _understand_?" Colt snarled, and Gut nodded immediately.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do! On it!" he replied, backing into the doorway and sweeping the corridor.

Colt shouldered his weapon, bit back the leg-shaking terror he was feeling, and moved up the passage to where he could hear Russell's moans of pain.

He was right. She _was_ hunting them.

_Gonna die_, he realized. _I am going to die here._

* * *

The lights on his HUD flashed and a burst of static cut across the screen. Snarling, Lieutenant Victor Wallace sidestepped behind cover, and a rocket-propelled grenade exploded against the low wall he took cover behind. Brick and ceramic shattered and screamed through the air, throwing up a cloud of dust that concealed his position. Wallace spun back around, his suit's onboard computers calculating available targets and trying to sync up with the rest of his four-man squad in the chaos.

Through the smoke, dust, and flames, he got a targeting solution, and fired. His railgun shattered the air, cutting a billowing corridor through the smokescreen, and hammered a Nod vehicle. He couldn't tell what kind it was, but the computer had designated the blob of heat in the general area of the Nod advance as an enemy. The GDI troops had precious few vehicles remaining anyway.

One either side of him, GDI soldiers were dug in, fighting a desperate battle to hold off the Nod advance. Rockets screamed from their positions, rifles and machineguns filled the air with tracer fire, and grenades rained upon the enemy. Mixed among the infantry, Wallace's Zone Troopers were picking and blasting any armored threats they saw, which was depressingly many.

This was their last line of defense before the wall of the Pentagon itself. They all knew that retreating to the wall would mean a dash across several hundred meters of open terrain; a virtual death trap if they didn't fall back in proper order.

Painfully bright red light filled the air, and a nearby APC exploded. Shrapnel deflected off Wallace's armor, and he saw men shredded by the whipping debris. Ammunition cooked off, hurling .50 caliber rounds in all directions.

"Avatar! Five hundred meters!"

The call was unnecessary. He could see the massive shape lumbered down the street half a kilometer away, Scarab-like tanks and light attack buggies scurrying around its feet like a herd of cats chasing their owner.

"Incoming Avatar! Platoon, target the Avatar!"

A single-story building a hundred meters to his left crumpled inward, and Wallace spun toward it, to see bricks and debris flying outward as something massive punched through the structure. Debris piled down atop the huge, beetle-like form, nearly five meters tall and with a rounded hull. Two protrusions jabbed out from its front, and both were marked by licking, yellow-white flames.

_"Flame tank!"_

Two rifle squads and one of Wallace's Zone Trooper squads were taking cover near the building. The Troopers spun and opened fire, pumping a quartet of railgun rounds into the tank's flank. The vehicle shook, and its hull cracked, but the turret atop its track section calmly turned to face the soldiers. Riflemen and missile troops scrambled for safety even as the Zone Troopers moved up even closer as if trying to shield the lighter infantry from the huge, fire-spewing monster.

White-hot flames lanced out in a ragged, conical spread, washing over the entire group of soldiers. Brick and asphalt were melted and smoothed into steaming glass. Armor simply sloughed off in an instant, liquefied and spreading out in glowing pools of molten plastic and ceramic. Flesh was incinerated outright, the soldiers not even having time to scream before the fires reduced them to ash. Flashes of light came as the Zone Troopers' power packs cooked off and exploded like demolition charges.

"Platoon! Target the flame tank!" Wallace shouted over the radio. As one, nineteen Zone Troopers - all that remained of A Company's First Platoon - whirled and pumped hypersonic railgun slugs into the tank.

The effect was immediate and satisfying. The slugs from the first squad had wounded the beast, but the flame tank's armor was thick and solid, designed to withstand that kind of abuse. However, nineteen railguns hammering it at once simply caused the armor to twist and crumple, deforming under the sonic booms of incoming tungsten rounds. The flame tank lurched to a halt, and then fire blossomed from its fuel compartment.

A second later, the tank was immolated in its own fires, as the fuel set it ablaze. The tanks on its back - containing chemicals that only caught fire when mixed and exploded to oxygen - ran together and caused a plume of white-hot fire to rise up into the air, like a funeral pyre clawing at the night sky. The remains of the building it had plowed through caught alight as well.

The rush of heat and light was so intense that Wallace had to look away lest his visor become so polarized that he couldn't see the street. As he did so, his heart froze.

"Incoming!" he yelled as he saw what was coming toward them.

The Avatar fired again, its laser beam hitting a rifle squad and sweeping through them, incinerating their armor and turning the men inside into exploding clouds of steam and fried flesh. An instant later, the Scorpion tanks opened up, shells whipping down the street at the dozens of entrenched soldiers.

Corporal Baxter, four meters to Wallace's left, came apart at the torso, a shell punching right through him and sending armored limbs flying through the air. Machinegun fire raked across their positions, punching through another Trooper's armor and sending him flopping to the ground.

A second laser beam lanced past, blowing apart another fireteam. Wallace looked up, hunting for a target, and his heart skipped a bit.

The Avatar had sidestepped, and a second one was looming up behind it.

* * *

"Sir," one of the NCOs called. "Multiple Avatars at A Company's position! They're taking heavy casualties!"

Karrde checked that area of the map as he heard the officer's report, and patched into the company radio. The panicked chatter was all he needed to hear.

"EVA, ETA on those Firehawks?"

"Fifteen minutes," came the AI's immediate reply.

"Not good enough," Karrde said, watching the markers indicating the Avatars advancing. GDI units simply cased to exist wholesale on the screen as the walkers blew through them without slowing.

Right now the time constraints were too delicate. The awesome firepower of those walkers was too much for a single infantry company to hold off; they'd be slaughtered in minutes unless he did something drastic. But he had no reserve units, nor did he have the fire support he needed to even delay the Avatars, let alone hurt them.

And if the Avatars achieved breakthrough, the Nod armies would be swarming over the Pentagon in under half an hour.

He looked over the company's remaining units, mind racing as it tried to find a solution, and one suddenly loomed up. A terrible, painful one, and he knew if he issued that order, good men and women would die . . . but far more would die if he didn't.

He opened the radio link.

"Fist Two," Karrde said, swallowing. "Fist Two, this is Actual."

_"Sir?"_ came the officer's reply.

"I need you to kill those walkers," he said, and highlighted the two Avatars. "No matter what it takes, I need those walkers dead."

A moment's silence.

"Aye, sir."

Karrde stared at the screen, and watched the marker indicated A Company's First Platoon move up to attack, without hesitation.

* * *

Soldiers were storming up the hallway, shouting for the men who lay dead on the floor. She could hear their boots hammering the carpeting, and knew they were only seconds away.

Sandra Telfair raised the stolen assault rifle from the dead man in the closet, and tried to forget those friendly eyes. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the rifle's trigger.

The weapon roared in the confined space, the flash of its muzzle almost blinding her, and the recoil hammered her shoulder. Clouds of dust and broken brick flew as the rounds punched through the wall, scything past the Nod troops. They ground to a halt outside, shouting in surprise and confusion.

She spun, scanning the room, keeping her eyes away from the men she'd killed.

_His blood was dripping off her fingers._

No. _Focus_. Window. Outside . . . a fire escape.

The enemy were closing, rising and moving up, no longer shouting. They knew an enemy was inside. She had only a few moments.

The window was open. Jagged glass poked out of top, shattered by a sonic boom or explosion or _something_. She swung the rifle across, clearing the window, and scrambled outside. Pain lanced through her fingers as she brushed shards of glass, and several pieces cut through her uniform.

A bullet slammed into the wall beside the window, and she heard a Nod soldier yelling for her to halt. His voice sent a lance of fear through Sandra, and for a heartbeat she was frozen in place, the memory of the Black Hand rising up again, crushing out hope and replacing it with despair. But a second thought rose to counter that burst of paralyzing emotion:

_They want me alive_.

That sudden, searing thought caused the rifle in her hands to shoot up, and she emptied the magazine at the Nod trooper. He dove aside, howling in pain as at least one bullet hit him, and then she was scrambling down the fire escape's stairs.

More yells from up above. She fumbled for another magazine, grabbing one she'd stuffed into the belt of her skirt. She had no idea how this weapon worked, and her bloody fingers were slipping on the grip, unable to hold it right.

Gunfire from up above, and more yelling for her to freeze. Rounds pinged off the metal nearby, but she knew the Nod troops would be hard-pressed to hit her through the grating. And they needed her alive.

The empty magazine dropped when she finally found the release. The box clattered through the metal bars, and she slid a fresh one into the magazine well. By then she was one floor above ground level.

A Nod soldier leaned out a window parallel to her, rifle raised.

"Hold it!" he shouted. She snapped up her weapon and shot him with a burst of autofire, hammering him with a half-dozen rounds from the hip. The man tumbled backward into the room beyond.

The militias' fear of the Black Hands was working to her advantage. They were outright _terrified_ of the idea of hurting her, which meant that they'd hesitate to shoot her.

One level remained, and she kicked down the ladder that ran to the ground. She could hear yelling from all sides, the remaining Nod troops hurrying down after her, asking for orders and permission to shoot.

She hit the pavement, her knees nearly buckling, and Sandra rose, scrambling to get away as fast as she-

A Black Hand loomed before her.

The terror she'd been fighting rushed back up through Sandra, and she almost slid to a halt underneath the implacable glare of those bloody optics, the shadowy specter, and the glittering fire of his flamethrower rifle.

_Almost_.

The Hand took a step toward her, raising his off-hand to grab her, and that sheer, uncontrollable panic she was feeling erupted. She sprayed the Hand from the hip, a wild, uncontrolled barrage of bullets that left the rifle clicking and empty in an instant.

One round of the unfocused, panicking point-blank barrage found his helmet optics.

The Hand jerked, shaking his head as he was suddenly blinded, and Sandra saw the tiniest flicker of a chance. She bolted forward, dropping the spent and useless rifle in a surge of blind fear, and ran past the disoriented Hand. By the time he'd gotten the helmet off and spun around, she was across the street, running with every drop of adrenaline she could muster.

Nod soldiers rushed out into the streets, directed by the Black Hand, and chased after the escaped prisoner.

* * *

Sergeant Harren Bendis cringed as a missile rocketed past his position, and he reached up, grabbing one of the magazines sitting beside his window sill. He reloaded his GDM-12 frantically as Nod troops scissored up the street, advancing up either side and laying down covering fire for each other. The Avatars pumped energy down the street, and a river of incoming laser and machinegun fire poured into the GDI positions. The Nod force had attained fire superiority, and were moving in for the kill.

Rounds skipped and shattered against the masonry beside him. Bendis felt one chunk of shrapnel slash into the side of his exposed face. He snarled a savage curse and kept firing. The machinegun hammered his shoulder even through the plate armor, and a pile of hot brass casing was gathering at his feet, sizzling into the carpet.

He saw the Avatars lurching forward, their gleaming red optics making for a horribly surreal sight. They seemed less machines and more gods, hurling thunderbolts of judgment on the hapless mortals below.

Then, the air shattered, and the Avatar turned its attention down toward the tiny human beings at its feet. Bendis saw the vapor trails as a dozen railgun rounds shattered vehicles scurrying about the walkers' feet, and then could hear the roar of jump-jets.

"No way in hell."

The Zone Troopers were _attacking_.

* * *

"Divide into fire sectors!" Wallace barked as he heard his jump jets screaming in his ears. "First and second teams, focus fire on the Avatars! Third, hit the anti-personnel!"

He felt his boots hit the ground, and he felt a dizzying wave shoot through him. How long had it been since he'd eaten? There was a rush of apprehension, a fluttering in his stomach, and he could feel a stinging warmth in his eyes - sweat or tears, he didn't know. Data spread across his HUD. Tank shells exploded on either side of him. Bullets pinged off his armor.

His rifle was heavy, even in his power-assisted limbs. His legs moved sluggishly. Everything seemed to slow down, weighted like in a high-gravity field.

He had a targeting solution on the lead Avatar's legs. The Nod soldiers and tanks seemed to hesitate, as if not believing what they were seeing. Seventeen Zone Troopers _charging_ into their massive advance?

Absolute _insanity_.

Wallace barked a laugh and fired. His squad followed suit. The air screamed in protest, and the rounds hammered the Avatar's leg with enough force to knock a Scorpion on its side. The walker barely shuddered.

One of the Troopers flew apart, a tank shell searing right through his armor and tearing him in half without even stopping. The power bar on his HUD charged up as Wallace ran behind cover. Explosions hammered him, shaking his teeth. Sweat poured down his brow. Incoherent yells filled his radio. Metal and masonry squealed and chipped as wave after wave of bullets raked over them.

The charge indicator beeped as it reached full capacity. Wallace spun out of cover, sighted the Avatar's legs, and fired again.

The shots were more ragged this time, a staggered burst of railgun slugs that hammered the Avatar in its leg once more. The mighty walker took a step forward, unperturbed.

It was still two hundred meters away and yet it loomed in between the buildings like an angry god. Its arm rose, and red destruction leapt from its fingertips.

He heard a truncated scream, and another Trooper - Sergeant Lewis - vanished. There was a burst of railgun fire, and a pair of Scorpions buckled and burst like ripe melons, belching flames into the air.

Wallace's cover exploded. Tank shells whipped all across his position. Small arms fire rippled through the air. A river of tracers like high-speed snow blizzarded toward the Zone Troopers.

"Hold your line!" Wallace screamed, raising his rifle as it charged up. The squad fired again, hammering the Avatar. It took another step forward, but now the leg was trailing, as if it were an old man limping on a bad leg.

Gunfire slashed across their position, from some kind of heavy machinegun. Corporal Vannick dropped to his knees, blood flying from his suit's visor as his head was pulped. Thirty meters to Wallace's right, First Sergeant Hernandez spun around, his right arm blown clean off by a laser beam from one of the self-propelled beam cannons at the Avatars' feet.

"Do it again!" Wallace roared, and he raised his rifle. His HUD flashed with a targeting solution, and he fired one last time.

The Avatar shook once more as its leg was hammered. It paused, as if confused, and then took another step forward. Its damaged leg hit the ground, shaking the street-

-and the Avatar toppled sideways, slamming into its compatriot. Both walkers toppled over, crashing into an apartment complex. The brick and masonry shuddered and crunched underneath the massive impact, walls buckling inward. Dust and debris lanced out of the building like fire from a flamethrower, and the ground reverberated with the shuddering crash and collision. Wallace was nearly pitched off his feet, steadying his ungainly form against the hunk of debris he was hiding behind.

Silence filled the street. Nod soldiers stood agape, staring in disbelief, while the Zone Troopers - less than ten now - let out a massive cheer. The only things moving were the flickering fires and the various rude gestures the power-armored troops were hurling at the Nod army.

Several long moments passed, the surviving GDI soldiers reveling in the triumph of downing two Nod Avatars. They had stopped the Nod advance as cold as a Mammoth counter-charge.

A Scorpion shell then decapitated one of the Zone Troopers.

Wallace raised his weapon, yelling for them to get to cover, but by then the entire Nod armored force charging down the highway was firing. Nod soldiers were opening up with small arms. Rockets hissed and screamed past. They were right back into the mix.

"Hold the line!" Wallace roared. He fired his rifle, coring a Scorpion. "Hold the _fucking _line!"

_"We can't stay here!"_ shouted one of his soldiers as the weight of the Nod assault began to hammer their position. The sheer level of noise was physically painful. Explosions rocked up and down the line, blowing apart cover and the men standing behind it.

"Shut the fuck up!" Wallace yelled, waiting for his railgun to recharge. "A Company needs us to cover the-"

Wallace stopped yelling, the point moot. The soldier he was screaming at was torn in half by a scything laser beam, his midsection reduced to ash.

Wallace rose and raised his weapon. He fired, and as the weapon bucked in his hand he saw the waves of Nod infantry pulsing toward them. Dozens of men. _Hundreds_ of men.

"Mother_fu_-"

A rocket-propelled grenade his the ground one meter to his right.

Lieutenant Victor Wallace was lifted into the air and hurled ten meters away, crashing into a building wall. His HUD cracked and broke inward, and the smells of the battle outside poured in, corpse-stink mixed with burning oil and blood.

Twelve seconds later, the hordes of Nod militia stampeded over his motionless body.

* * *

"Bring it!" Bendis shouted, cursing and snarling as the Nod soldiers swarmed up the street, over the broken forms of the collapsed Avatars, around their burning tanks, and between the piled dead. The GDM-12 went cyclic, and his shoulder was numb from recoil.

"Bring more, motherfuckers!" The SAW ran empty, and he started to reload as Nod soldiers poured fire into the building's windows. Glass cracked and whipped about, rounds shattered against concrete or splintered wood, and pain lanced through his body in a dozen places.

Bendis ignored it. No, he didn't ignore it - he _fed_ off it, using the pain to keep his mind clear and he opened the rifle, set a fresh belt, closed and locked the breech, and pulled back the lever, feeding the first round into the chamber. He raised the machinegun and opened up anew.

The enemy was like a tide below - hundreds of light infantry, rushing through the mirrored avenues, ignoring the piddling fire coming from his building. Dozens of weapons raked the apartment, forcing GDI riflemen into cover. Squads bounded forward, using tanks and cars and debris as protection. Over the raging fusillade of rounds, he could hear Nod chants and prayers, and see the forms of enemy confessors and Black Hands striding through the onslaught.

Bendis kept firing.

A Nod squad breached the apartment's first floor. They rushed in, weapons blazing. A GDI fireteam tried to hold the hallway, and was overwhelmed with grenades and rushing militia.

Bendis kept firing.

Nod soldiers stormed up the stairs, trading fire with defenders on the upper levels. Columns of tracers flew up and down the stairwell as the enemy advanced, gunning down the GDI soldiers one by one.

Bendis kept firing.

A Nod fireteam swept into the room behind him. Pain flew up his back, punching out his chest, and he was pushed forward off his chair and onto his back. He screamed, sweeping the GDM-12 across the room. Two Nod soldiers were killed, and another dove to the floor as rounds gouged holes and furrows in masonry and plaster. The prone soldier fired, pumping three rounds into the sergeant's throat.

The Nod soldier rose and ran across the room, emptying his rifle into the prone body. Bendis' fingers remained clasped tightly around the SAW's trigger, the bolt pumping as it poured the last of its magazine into the wall.

By the time the weapon clicked empty, Sergeant Harren Bendis was long since dead.

* * *

Two hundred and seventeen men and women reached the walls of the Pentagon, joined by one hundred and twenty more dedicated Pentagon Guards. They were an eclectic mixture: Zone Security officers, hastily-armed municipal police, and what had once been a five-hundred and fifty man battalion of recon troops.

Many were wounded. All were exhausted. Ammunition was at less than fifty percent. They had no armor, nor any Zone Trooper support. Air cover was a question mark, artillery and reinforcements an even bigger one.

Three hundred and thirty-seven men and women dug in, and prepared to deny the enemy his prize.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Well, that took too damn long.

This chapter has actually been split in half. A lot of stuff was supposed to happen this chapter, but it was too much for a single chapter to deal with. So, I sliced this part in half. The stuff left dangling will be resolved next chapter, so don't worry.

One of the most striking books I've recently read was House To House: A Soldier's Memoir, written by US Army Staff Sergeant David Bellavia. It tells a rather striking tale of just how savage and absurd war can really be, and it has heavily influenced this story. One particularly striking moment in the book is when Bellavia describes a hand-to-hand battle against an enemy insurgent, and lays out the terribly intimate nature of the battle. In particular at the very end, after he's mortally wounded his foe, Bellavia is shocked to find his enemy forgiving him in his last moments. I tried to convey that sort of intimacy between a killer and their victim in this chapter, showing how horribly tragic a close-in kill tends to be when the combatants are forced to acknowledge each other's humanity face-to-face even as they kill one another.

And an interesting bit of irony: I didn't even realize the signifigance of Goodman's last name until after I was done writing that scene. It was just picked out at random. Maybe my subconscious is telling me things.

Until next chapter . . . .


	17. Chapter XVI: Unrivaled

_**Chapter Sixteen: Unrivaled**_

_Rule Zero: Thou Shalt Not Taunt Murphy._

_"Actual, this is Hammer One."_

"One, Hammer Actual, go ahead."

_"Interrogative. Breach or exterminate?"_

"One, breach." Colonel James Creden grinned. "We'll let the infantry mop up behind us. We've got a war to win."

_"Understood, Actual. One out."_

* * *

"Sir, we've gotten nearly everyone behind cover," called one of the officers across the command center. Commander Karrde looked up, sighing, and nodded.

"Colonel Franklin back yet?"

"No, sir. His men are pinned down. Nod elements are breaking off to surround his position."

"Understood," Karrde whispered, looking over the battlefield, and began issuing additional deployment orders. "FAC, assign Type Three air cover to five kilometers west of the Pentagon."

"Understood, enabling Type Three air cover," his forward air controller replied. That meant that the entire area west of the Pentagon was open to bombing at the discretion of the pilots in question. In effect, he'd just marked the area as a free-fire zone.

"This is it," the commander said, steeling himself.

The world shivered as Nod finally began their assault on the Pentagon itself.

* * *

"Can it work?"

"Well, we don't have the expertise here to synch up the computers with the sensors,"

"I don't care," Major Jess Howell muttered, her voice echoing inside the interior of the tank's turret. "Can your rig up the goggles to a monitor?"

"Yeah," replied the Predator's former commander, a Master Sergeant named Davis. "But not to the targeting computer. Software doesn't recognize the goggles."

"Different manufacturers," Howell grunted. "Just wire them into a monitor. We'll just rely on standard crosshairs instead of the targeting computers." She looked back toward the man working on the autoloader, a Corporal Wilkins. "How's the loader?"

"Fucked," muttered Wilkins. "Looks like a solid penetrating shot."

"Can you fix it?" she asked, and he sighed.

"This place isn't exactly a parts depot," he said. "And half the broken pieces need a full overhaul."

"Right," Howell said, grunting.

This wasn't her tank, nor was it theirs. Havoc's people had found it partially disabled during one of their sweeps, with the crew killed by Nod militia who had grenaded the hatch and shot up the interior. The militia had met Havoc's people a couple minutes later, who gladly returned the favor.

She hadn't asked what happened to Davis' tank, or why they seemed to be missing their driver.

"Going to have to load by hand, then," Davis mused, and she nodded. Outside the tank, they hard a clanging sound, a familiar noise to any tanker, and Howell popped her head out of the sweaty turret. Down below, Colonel Nick Parker was standing by the tank, a wrench in hand.

"Major," he called up to her.

"Sir?"

"Don't call me that. One of the radio jockeys got an intercept, I'm taking three guys to go check it out. You're in charge 'till I get back."

"What?" she asked, caught off-guard, but before she could protest, Parker tossed the wrench aside and hurried across the warehouse to a waiting Nod buggy.

"Um, okay," she called after him. " . . . thanks?"

* * *

Shrapnel rained around him. A man screamed nearby. Corpsmen ran from body to body. Explosions ran up and down the line, the three-meter wide concrete barrier blasted and shattering under constant rocket and mortar fire. The autocannons and railgun towers roared and chattered.

PFC Cale Winters was exhausted. He was bleeding from his mouth where he'd bitten his tongue, and he'd had to get a replacement helmet when his original was damaged by shrapnel. This one wasn't synched up to the company network, and he'd had to pull the connection on his HUD to keep from getting conflicting information.

His hands were numb. He'd spent all but two of his grenade drums, and had thrown all of his compliment of disc grenades. Now he was down to a bandoleer of regular frag, concussion, incendiary, flashbang, and gas grenades, along with a drum of white phosphorous grenades and a half-drum of explosive grenades, and his GD45 sidearm.

The launcher clicked, and he realized he was down to one drum.

They came across the hundreds of meters of open space between the Pentagon and the civilian structures. Light assault vehicles, Scorpion tanks, Reckoner APCs, infantry groups boiling between them like a dark tide of militia. Rivers of tracers flew back and forth from the civilian structures as riflemen, snipers, and machinegunners poured fire into the defenders' lines.

The field between the buildings and the Pentagon became littered with burning corpses, both human and machine. Dozens of light vehicles had been destroyed by rocket and grenade fire, and yet more came on, maneuvering around the bodies of the ruined vehicles. Infantry bounded from cover to cover, using the ruined hulks of transports and tanks as barricades and shelter.

Cale began firing his remaining grenades, arcing them over enemy cover to explode in the air and rain shards of boiling-hot phosphorous on them from overhead. He could hear their screams even over the ruckus of war on all sides of him.

Men fell all around him. The grass and concrete were stained with blood, the sky corrupted by smoke, fires stabbing into the morning sky. Explosions ripped up the ground and hurled body parts into the air. Dust clogged and choked. Brass casings rained to the concrete.

They fought on.

* * *

They were close to achieving breakthrough.

Commander Logan Rawne leaned back in his chair, watching his chess pieces advance. He had lost countless troops and vehicles thus far, but he had a glut of resources on hand. He cared nothing for his losses; he knew any true brother or Sister would give his or her life gladly for the cause.

The Avatars walked closely behind the main advance, almost ready to strike the defense line that remained at the Pentagon. He had two companies of elite airborne troops ready in carryalls, as well as two more battalions of regular airborne infantry waiting his orders. Reinforcements of Spectre artillery platforms were sliding into place to provide the final supporting punch. GDI's reinforcements were cut off, surrounded, or blocked.

Everything was going according to plan, and it would take an act of God to stop this advance.

He sent his artillery their targets, and followed by giving the airborne forces their deployment orders as well. The Spectres began firing, and the Avatars strode forward.

* * *

Corporal Tanner Bowles stumbled over a chunk of debris, bumping it with his foot and nearly taking a painful spill to the asphalt. He steadied himself and rose, bounding across the street. He could hear the clanking and clatter of engineers setting up weapons emplacements, and the dull tremors of Scorpion tanks sliding into prepared firing positions. The road itself was strewn with vehicles the troops had dragged or driven into place to form makeshift barricades, and he could see troops digging into firing holes or taking positions inside buildings lining the river bank.

His light infantry company, supported by a couple squads of Scorpions, was turning this stretch of critical road into an impenetrable killing zone. The GDI forces east of them would have to cross this bridge to reach the Pentagon, and their orders were to hold and delay them on this side of the river for as long as physically possible.

Scrambling over another barricade, Bowles dropped down into a makeshift fighting hole, lading next of a heavyset man leaning over a light machinegun, peering through a slit in the rubble he'd piled up half an hour previously.

"Dougherty," grunted Bowles, grinning, and the machinegunner looked up as the corporal tossed him a sealed brown bag. "Happy birthday."

"Birthday was three months ago," Doughterty grunted, picking up the bag.

"Little belated, I know," Bowles replied, grinning, opening his own bag.

"GDI MREs," Dougherty said, and a smile spread across his own features. "Chicken fajita. Never had one of those before. Where'd you get it?"

"Travis and the guys over in Third were checking a GDI APC that we hit with rockets over thataway," Bowles gestured. "Found a pile of MREs inside." He began to fish chunks of dried, pre-cooked meat out of the tray inside the bag.

"And Third Platoon just let you have some of their food?" Dougherty asked, pulling out a bag of tart candies and starting on them.

"Oh no, it took some spectacular exploits of daring thievery on my part," grinned Bowles. "Real Solid Snake stuff, you know."

Dougherty chuckled. Solid Snake was an in-joke for their platoon; one of the troopers had stumbled across a mint-condition NES while looting a vault back in Illinois, with a half-dozen games still operating on it, even after sixty years. They'd all played the original Metal Gear game religiously.

"Tell you what, if we run into any deadly Zanzibar hamsters out here, I think-

Bowles paused as they heard footsteps behind them, and they looked up, to see Sergeant Zherron walking over their fighting hole, his infra-red goggles still sitting on his forehead.

"Enjoying your meal, men?" he asked, and both soldiers nodded.

"Good," he continued. "Don't puke it up when GDI gets here."

"Are they on the way?" Bowles asked, and Zherron nodded.

"News just came down from battalion. We've almost taken the Pentagon, we just need a few more hours to secure the building. Infidels are trying to get reinforcements to bolster their lines, so we've got to keep them off that bridge."

"Can't we just blow the bridge?" Dougherty asked, and Zherron shrugged.

"I suggested that to the lieutenant, and he said we were going to 'need them intact to maintain forward momentum and retain the initiative.'"

"In other words, battalion doesn't want to waste time having the engineers build new bridges," grunted Bowles, and Zherron shrugged again.

"'The ways of our illustrious commanders are mysterious and wise, and we must only do as they command, for they are the words of the Messiah himself,'" Zherron quoted, and the two troopers in the hole chuckled.

"If they come this way, save your fire for the infantry," Zherron added, all business now. "Company might call for an infantry counter-charge and flanking maneuver if they send only armor our way. Make sure your charges are ready."

Bowles nodded, tapping the pair of shaped tiberium-based explosive charges he had in a pouch on his belt.

"Just need to hit the timer, sarge," he said, and Zherron nodded.

"Good hunting," he added, and moved off to check on the rest of the squad.

"How long do you think we've got?" Dougherty asked, settling back over his machinegun, and Bowles shrugged.

"GDI's getting desperate," he replied, smiling. "These idiots never expected us to attack like this. Probably rolling everything they've got just to-"

_"CONTACT!"_

Both soldiers jerked at the yell, coming about fifty meters to their left. Bowles shouldered his rifle as he dropped his MRE, moving forward to cover.

Then there was noise, and darkness.

Bowles blinked, his head aching and feeling like he was drowning a kilometer below the ocean. He shook his head, trying to rise, and could feel powerful vibrations in all directions. The early morning sky, hazy and unclear, was streaked with smoke and fire, and he could feel the vibrations of firing weapons. The shockwaves of booming cannons resounded on all sides of him, and a hand reached down to grab him.

"Bowles, up! On your feet, Corporal!"

It was Zherron. His infrared goggles were pulled down over his eyes, his rifle was in one hand, and a hunk of Bowles' tattered combat vest was in the other as he dragged the dazed corporal to his feet.

"What happ-" Bowles began, but stopped as he saw Dougherty.

The machinegunner's left flank was shredded. Stone was embedded in his body, a dozen hunks of concrete and shiny mirror-asphalt buried in his flank. He lay across his machinegun, and the wrapper for his MRE was draped over his face. Somehow, seeing that brown paper bag on his friend's head was more obscene than any deliberate marking or disfigurement.

"We're under fire, Bowles!" Zherron yelled, steadying the corporal. "Get your ass on the line! Half the squad is down, we need everyone we-"

Zherron flew apart at the waist, and the explosion of an object whipping past faster than the speed of sound hit Bowles a second later, knocking him off his feet. He struggled to regain his footing, pushing off the broken ground, and found his chest was coated in Zherron's blood and bits of flesh. Half the sergeant's body was missing, the other half broken into a dozen semi-liquefied pieces. The stink of ruptured intestines filled the little fighting hole.

Bowles retched onto the ground, and heard a massive explosion behind him. He stumbled forward, covered in blood and vomit, and his boot hit Zherron's goggles.

He numbly picked them up, noticing distantly that they'd fallen off his head somehow, and then stumbled to the nearest hunk of debris that would shield him from incoming fire. He fumbled with the goggles, putting them on, and the world became a series of whites, blacks, and grays. Moving more on instinct than anything else, Bowles raised his weapon to his shoulder and leaned around the corner of the piece of masonry he crouched behind.

The goggles were broken, he realized. They were showing massive heat signatures, coming from the buildings down the road, but the buildings weren't staying still. They were growing large, their heat signatures flaring every few seconds, accompanied by nearby explosions, and-

Bowles was a tough man. He'd faced the nastiest horrors in his piece of shithole Yellow Zone without blinking. Yet, the sudden horrified realization that hit him at that moment made the corporal void himself, which only marginally worsened the stink in the blood-soaked fighting hole.

The heat he was seeing on his new goggles _wasn't coming from buildings_.

He tore off the goggles, the rifle falling slack in his fingers, even as he felt the horrible rumbling. Staring down the street, fear hammered his heart, and Bowles realized that the massive, oncoming forms were still half a kilometer away.

The air shattered, and a Scorpion simply ceased to exist, replaced by flying hunks of metal and fire. A thunderbolt fell upon their lines, blowing apart cover and sending men - and the pieces thereof - hurtling through the air. Rockets, laser beams, cannon shells, even machinegun fire rippled back toward the advancing shapes rolling through the haze and gloom, but seemed to have no effect. Bowles watched, fascinated and horrified, as lasers simply dissipated against unyielding ceramic plating, cannon shells bounced off harmlessly, and rockets exploded without effect against the impregnable hulls.

They answered, and the world shattered in all directions, incoming shells blowing apart metal, ceramic, stone, and asphalt. He heard yells, screams of pain and panic, furious prayers, an officer yelling and firing his service pistol at a couple of fleeing soldiers.

The world shook again, and then again. Dust and smoke filled the air, and then Bowles was hurled off his feet. He rolled underneath as battered car, and then began to crawl away. A Scorpion blew apart, its twisted, half-molten cannon bouncing past and skidding to a halt nearby. Bowles scrambled and crawled, moving through oil slicks, shattered glass, pools of blood and body parts. A hand flopped to the ground nearby, still clutching part of an M16 MkII's handle and trigger group.

He felt more than heard the pitiful attempts at return fire from his own comrades, and the answer sent the world shivering on all sides. Bowles managed to get out from underneath the car, and ran into a nearby building, even as machinegun fire stitched the ground around him. He stole a glimpse toward the oncoming forms, and his heart leapt into his throat -now they were no more than two hundred meters away, their immense, boxy shapes crunching over vehicles and barriers with impunity. They belched fire and hell, shattering carefully-constructed defenses like they were made of paper and glass.

An RPG team hurried into the little storefront Bowles had taken shelter inside, and frantically began setting up to fire. He stared at them, dumbfounded at their idiocy or courage. Then he rose, running out the back of the building, even as they fired. He heard the _snap-whoosh _of their outgoing missiles, and dove for cover through a doorway into an alley at the rear of the building.

He heard and felt the storefront cave in when the inevitable retaliation came. A chunk of the building a few meters ahead of him blew out as the shell continued on, as nothing as simple as a dozen layers of concrete and metal would slow it down. Bowles rose and scrambled, still clutching his rifle, and emerged from the alley, looking for reinforcements or allies.

The ground shuddered beneath him, and he heard the roar of an engine, suddenly so close and personal. The grinding noise of its treads sent spikes of pain through his head, and as he looked up, he saw it.

Twenty meters away, rolling down the street, was a building.

No, not exactly, but it might as well have been. It was like a house had simply risen up on treads, sprouted a pair of cannons and machineguns, and decided to wreak havoc on everything before it. The slab of metal and armor alloys shuddered down the street, crushing cars like insects, its cannon booming with such force that it ruptured Bowles' eardrums and shattered glass in all directions. He dropped to one knee as blood splattered down his cheeks from his ears, and then saw movement.

On the back of the building-sized tank was a man halfway out of the top hatch, manning a machinegun. The man and his weapon were like a joke, compared with the sheer size of the tank. For an instant, he considered raising his rifle and trying to pick the man off, but then the machinegunner glanced his way. His mouth opened, and the machinegun swung toward Bowles.

The corporal dropped his rifle, raising his hands, to ward off the incoming fire or just to surrender, he didn't know himself. He opened his own mouth to yell something, but then the machinegun roared. The alley was filled with bullets, whipping shrapnel, and blood.

As the corporal's body fell to the concrete, the oblivious Mammoth-27 rolled down the street, its cannon raining thunderbolts on the enemy before it.

* * *

He heard gunfire up the corridor, and broke into a dead run.

Colt could hear Russell's shouts echoing down the hallway, and knew he was engaged when the roar of a laser weapon resounded from the same direction. Russell screamed, and continued firing, and then there were several more laser blasts. There was more shouting, violent cursing, and several vicious impacts, and then . . . silence.

He slowed, fingers clutching his GD2 tightly. Silence drifted through the empty apartment building, and in its wake came a sickening uncertainty. There was no doubt in his mind that Russell had not made it out of that encounter intact, but at the same time the corporal knew he couldn't leave Russell without making sure he was okay.

He edged toward the front of the abandoned apartment building, rifle up at his shoulder, and as he listened, Colt could hear panting and pained moaning. He moved up, weapon ready, finger over the trigger.

He stepped into the front lobby of the building, and saw Russell lying on the floor, facedown, helmet off. There was a stink of cooked meat in the air, even through the filter of Colt's rebreather, and he saw smoke issuing from Russell's back and shoulders. He was still alive, breathing heavily but otherwise completely still.

The commando was nowhere to be seen, though that didn't exactly fill Colt with relief. He swept the room with his flashlight and thermal sensors, and didn't detect anything. Very slowly, he edged into the room, crouching beside Russell.

"Hey, its Colt," he whispered, and Russell's head rose to face him. The corporal almost recoiled in shock and horror.

Russell's jaw had been perforated by laser fire.

"What did that bitch do to you?" Colt asked, reaching down to roll the agonized trooper over to check his torso.

The machinegunner tried to speak, his jaw not responding, his arms flopping helplessly. Colt was confused; why would she disable Russell like this if she wanted to-

Russell suddenly shook his head violently and thrashed against Colt as he lifted the wounded man up, and then the corporal caught sight of a flat object underneath his chest.

Russell thrashed again, throwing Colt off a split-second before the mine detonated. The wounded man's body fell across the mine and absorbed the blast, but Colt was lifted bodily and hurled across the room to hammer the wall. His head hit ceramic, and everything went dark for a long, agonizing second.

* * *

Dark shapes swarmed across the gaps between burning corpses and broken metal. Rockets flew back and forth, detonating among the advancing Nod tanks and blowing chunks out of the wall. Screaming mortars exploded on all sides, pelting the defenders with shrapnel. Burnt flesh and corpse-stink choked their way through rebreathers. Over the din of war, the chants of Nod soldiers could be heard, led by the tall-helmed confessors, and the militia rushed through gunfire that would drop sane men. The stimulants pumping through their blood kept them standing and firing and charging until their bodies were shredded.

It was hell.

Winters swept his grenade launcher toward the oncoming enemy, even as a Scorpion exploded less than two dozen meters ahead. Shrapnel deflected off the plating covering his body, and he ducked behind cover. As soon as the debris stopped raining, he rose.

_"KANE LIVES!"_

A Nod soldier, not five meters away, face twisted in euphoric fanaticism, charged at him, firing his rifle from the hip. Brass rained through the air, bullets bounced and shattered concrete and deflected off the trooper's armor.

Cale fired. His grenade lanced straight into the soldier's chest, leaving a white trail of smoke and knocking the man backward. White phosphorous burst from the grenade a heartbeat later, setting the man's fatigues ablaze. He howled in agony, twisting and thrashing, but Cale paid him no more mind.

More Nod troops were charging around the corpse of the Scorpion, scrambling toward the wall. They ran over debris, firing rifles, tossing grenades, yelling battle cries and fervent chants. Cale spun toward a pair running toward him, their rifles blazing, and fired.

The grenade launcher clicked empty. He dropped the weapon and drew a frag grenade off his chest. He depressed the spoon, and pulled the pin, and electrical fuse inside the grenade began counting down. He chucked the explosive into the enemy as they swarmed toward him, and then grabbed and lobbed another grenade, and then another.

Then they were too close, and Cale dragged his sidearm out of its holster. He raised the weapon and then felt a vicious punch to one of his legs, and tumbled backward behind the wall.

The pair climbed over the wall a moment later, and his sidearm cracked twice, blowing one soldier's neck apart and punching through the mouth of the other. They toppled off the wall, one of their rifles clattering to the ground beside him. He scrabbled for the weapon, and, despite the insane situation, Cale managed a laugh. It was an AK-47.

Here he was, a GDI soldier, one of the best-equipped warriors in the world, defending the most important building in North America with a half-empty eighty-year old assault rifle.

He tried to stand, but pain flared up his leg as he rose. Cale gasped, rising to one knee, and could see another Nod trooper clambering up over the wall. He shot the man twice in the neck and chest.

Up and down the line, they were coming up and over the wall. Nod soldiers, carried forward by numbers, cover, pain-deadening amphetamines, and raw hatred, hurled themselves at the GDI lines, dying by the dozens and not caring.

Fire sprayed across the fields as flame tanks rumbled forward, bulling through rocket fire and grenades. Scorpion tanks threaded between them, while buggies and rocket bikes zipped through the gaps. Emerging through the smoke-streaked morning air came swooping Vertigos, disgorging payloads across the line, vaporizing both Nod and GDI with equal fury.

And stomping through the smoke and chaos, like detached gods, came the Avatars, hurling ruby thunderbolts for their arm-mounted cannons, red optics arrays boring into the souls of the defenders.

_This is it, _he thought, shouldering the ancient weapon and firing at another Nod warrior. _Time to die, Cale._ _Second day out of boot. _

_Fuck me_.

* * *

"Colt? Colt, respond."

Gutierrez shouldered his rifle, glancing back toward Penlan. The other trooper's head was resting against the wall, and he moved back across the room to check her vitals, linking his HUD to hers. The display indicated that she was still alive, her breath shallow, but she had passed out.

He turned back toward the door, and one of the smart claymores detonated.

"Shit!" he yelled as shards of heated metal whipped about in the corridor outside, and he ducked behind the nearest cover, a boiler of some kind. He leveled his rifle at the entrance to the room.

Silence. He crouched, listening intently to his own breathing. Had the mine gotten the commando? His own breath was sounded ragged in his ears, and he paused to swallow.

Out the corner of his eye, Gut saw movement, and spun-

A blue-white laser burst lanced across the room, severing Gut's GD2 just ahead of the trigger group. The metal front of the rifle clattered to the floor, glowing white where it had been blown apart, and he hissed as shards of shrapnel cut through his armor around his chest and left forearm.

She was in the room with him.

Gut rolled around the boiler, drawing his sidearm, mind racing as he tried to figure out how she'd bypassed the claymore. He didn't know how it was physically possible.

Movement. He fired at a flicker across the room, and three rounds punched into the wall, hurling chunks of masonry into the air.

Stillness.

He spun, eyes hunting around the room as he moved to put his back to a wall. Fear welled up inside him, making his steady pistol grip shake. Gritting his teeth, Gut stilled his hands, making sure he was holding the weapon properly: left hand supporting gun hand, weapon firmly in hand, sights aligned.

Seven meters ahead, near the door-

_Crack-cracrack!_

Then she was _there_, dancing around his bullets like some goddamned Japanese ani-

He took a step back, and a blade slashed across the front of his HUD, cutting a crease through the visor. He snapped forward, smashing the butt of the handgun down with one hand while the other snapped forward the grab the attacker's passing arm.

He struck only air, fingers grasping at nothing, and then his gun hand's wrist flared in agony. He stumbled backward, pistol clattering to the floor and blood splattering across the concrete. Through his rebreather, Gut could smell the copper tang.

He managed to draw his knife, and then a blue-white beam - thin and narrow, like the one that had maimed Penlan - hit him in his shoulder, blowing apart armor. Gut toppled backward, clutching his wound, hearing his knife clatter away.

_She's toying with me._

"Fuck," he breathed. "Fuck. Fuck . . . you . . . ."

His fingers were going numb, but he still had enough strength in his left arm to pull a grenade off his belt. He glanced to Penlan, seeing her a safe distance away, and depressed the spoon on the fragmentation grenade.

_You may kill me, _he thought. _I'll be damned if I let you get Penlan, too._

Gut rolled over as he saw movement, and he pulled the pin, triggering the grenade's electrical fuse. His arm pumped, chucking the grenade at the commando even as he saw another blue flash of killing light.

* * *

Breath pumped out of Sandra Telfair's lungs as she ran. She hurried down the alley, and thought she heard the boots of pursuing Nod soldiers close behind her. She reached the mouth of the alley, looking up and down the street. She saw nothing but abandoned vehicles, debris, and the occasional corpse.

Where were the civilians? Were they all hiding in their homes? Maybe she could find shelter-

Gunfire sounded behind her, and the wall beside her exploded. She broke into a run as she heard yelling. She dashed across the street, ducking and weaving between cars to keep cover between herself and her pursuers.

They wouldn't shoot her. They needed her alive, and as long as she kept out of reach and kept running east toward the GDI lines, she'd be safe.

Bullets slammed into the car she was passing, and another shot over her shoulder, an inch from hitting her.

They'd changed their minds. Now they _were_ shooting at her. _Shit._

She ducked into another alley, cursing at herself for her panicked stupidity. If she'd kept under control, if she'd not lost her cool when she saw another Black Hand, she might still have a working weapon. And what blind panic had made her throw the gun away? She could have used it as a club, worst came to worst . . . .

She reached the other end of this alley, and looked back over her shoulders, to see another Nod trooper appear at the far end, raising his rifle. He began to yell, and she broke into a run, emerging from the alley to-

The roar of an engine sliced through Sandra's ears, and a Nod buggy charged down the street and stopped in front of her.

_No. Goddammit, no._

She turned to run, but the only way to retreat was back down the alley, and now there were multiple Nod troops running toward her, and then, looming behind them, a Black Hand.

She was trapped. The buggy loomed in front of her, machinegun swinging to cover her.

"Freeze!" yelled a voice from inside the buggy. "Don't move! Hands in the air!"

* * *

The grenade clattered across the floor, top half smoking.

_No. No . . . ._

She'd shot the grenade's electrical fuse off before it could trigger the explosives inside.

_Goddamn high-tech piece of shit._

Gut sank back to the floor, jaw agape as she stalked across the room, finally becoming visible as she shrugged off her camouflage field: a lithe woman in a dark red and black bodysuit, eyes covered in a mask that looked almost a part of her skull and face. Maybe it was.

"Good job," the woman said, and he thought she was smiling.

The laser pistol rose, centered his head, and she squeezed the trigger.

His helmet blew apart, the beam vaporizing Gutierrez's skull and brain in an instant.

The commando paused, looking around the room with a quick flick of her eyes, and stepped over the dead soldier's body. She moved toward the remaining trooper in the room, slumped against the wall. Penlan lay still, the faint, shallow breaths betraying the fact that she still lived. The commando crouched in front of her, examining her still body.

Lieutenant Cristos considered her options. She could easily just kill the infidel where she lay, but a live prisoner was preferable, and unlike GDI, the Brotherhood had something resembling a moral code. She'd call in a squad to secure the prisoner and move her out, and then would . . . .

She froze, and then slowly turned toward the entrance to the room, just as Corporal Colt came around the doorframe, rifle raised.

He saw the commando for a heartbeat, and guessed what was happening an instant before the Nod soldier vanished, and he spun back around the doorframe. An eyeblink later, a blue-white beam slashed through the wall mere millimeters from his shoulder.

_Run, run, _run_. Penlan's not dead, but she'll be happy to kill you. Move, now!_

Colt broke into a run, over the remaining smart claymore, and prayed it would be enough to slow down the commando before she put a laser beam through his torso. He thought he heard her behind him, and then the claymore exploded.

He didn't stop to check. He charged up the hallway toward the entrance, left hand rising to his chest webbing and snatching a flashbang. He primed and chucked it over his shoulder, gritting his teeth when it blew a second later.

Colt ducked around a corner, and a laser beam punched through the wall beside him, singeing the back of his helmet.

_Shit, shit, shit!_

She was right behind him. He could feel the commando's eyes burning into him, the cybernetic implants and augmetics casually lining him up and bringing the laser pistol into the center of his back, her finger gently squeezing the trigger.

He leapt over Russell's mangled body and ran out into the street outside. He didn't pause to check at the entrance, and for all he knew he was running headlong into the Annual Black Hand Taco Fiesta.

The street was empty, save for debris and corpses, both machine and man. He spent a heartbeat looking around, and then ran to his left. Just as he turned, a laser beams slashed across his back, boiling away armor, and he cried out in pain. Stumbling forward, Colt dove behind a car, spinning around to bring his rifle to bear even as the commando whispered out of the building. She whirled toward him, laser pistol rising too fast for him to see, and he fell back behind the car as she cored the engine compartment with three rapid bursts. She walked toward him, pistol firing rapidly, bracketing either end of the car with dazzling shards of killing light.

Colt dropped to his belly, pointing his rifle under the car, and fired at her feet.

Between the point where he achieved sight alignment and pulled the trigger, Cristos was already running toward the car and vaulting over it. She landed on the roof, leveling her pistol at Colt's back even as he wondered where she'd gone. She smiled, and then began to squeeze the trigger.

Then her head exploded.

* * *

"Good kill. Target down," Corporal Terrence said, watching the decapitated commando's body topple on top of the confused and startled soldier below.

Beside him, Sergeant "Simo" Havers grunted and peeled his eye off his sniper rifle's scope. He was right. Good, clean kill.

* * *

The sky screamed in protest, and eyes turned upward just as explosions rippled across the ground, spreading over the killing field west of the Pentagon like rivers of hell spilling over the land. Napalm and cluster munitions toppled and detonated, setting the sky and the dirt ablaze in equal frenzy, and those who could still see into the air spotted the forward-swept wings of jet fighters as they howled past.

The Firehawks stooped and twisted, unleashing their payloads: ground strike munitions, half-ton bombs, cluster munitions and guided missiles loaded with napalm and high explosive. Overhead, other Firehawks whirled and hunted, keeping the sky clear from Venom incursion while their comrades inflicted agony on the ground.

They weaved back and forth, loosing missiles and bombs, two dozen lithe angels slicing apart the sky like whirling scimitars. Tanks exploded, light vehicles burned, and Nod soldiers scattered when their positions were pounded by whipping shrapnel and ribbons of rapacious flame.

Moments later, the cries of another breed of engine filled the sky, and the Orcas pounced, speeding over the dead zone. Missiles rained from their belly pods while cannons chattered. Shell casings rained by the thousands as they weaved up and down the Nod lines, emptying their magazines in a frenzy of airborne wrath.

In the span of a minute, two squadrons of Firehawks and a squadron of Orcas had cut a swathe through fifty Nod tanks, a hundred light vehicles, and several hundred enemy soldiers, leaving a wilderness of fire and twisted metal in their wake. Then, they peeled off, their munitions expended.

Then, in the wake of the steel rain, the ground quaked.

The infantry didn't notice it at first, as they were locked in deadly close-combat with dozens of enemy soldiers who had still reached the walls. Rifles and knives clashed as GDI and Nod soldiers met atop and below the walls of the Pentagon, snarling and shouting, bleeding and dying atop one another. None of them could feel the shiver of the earth, save for the impacts of the Avatars as they strode forward into the burnt landscape, or the distant, light grinding of Scorpion treads as they moved to fill the gaps left by their predecessors. This was something different, something deeper and mightier.

The first to see it were the pilots of the quartet of Nod carryall aircraft swooping over the Pentagon, preparing to drop two companies of elite air-assault infantry east of the building. They managed to begin veering off, pilots yelling in surprised and worried voices, before a volley of missiles tore through their craft, blasting them into flaming wreckage and raining soldiers.

Two Pentagon Guards on the north side of the wall saw it next, as they were firing on advancing Nod troops. They felt the rumbles, and looked back behind them to the northwest, and their hearts hit their throats.

The third to see it were the Nod soldiers fighting them - but only for a few heartbeats, until their world exploded all around them. The air cracked, the ground shook, and the sound barrier protested with ear-breaking rage as it was horribly violated.

The rumbling grew more pronounced, and now it was noticeable - as were the distant, almost unheard cheers from the northern wall. Eyes turned north - or at least, those not locked on the chaos before them - and they saw a cloud of dust rising above the Pentagon, and could now acutely feel the roar and thunder of the shivering soil beneath their feet.

The first of them came into view through the smoke and debris, crunching over shattered tanks and buggies, grinding corpses under its treads, and the pair of titanic cannons in its main turret spat twin bolts of judgment that split a pair of Scorpions down the middle.

Then they could see another. And another. And _another_.

They spoke, rippling bursts of fury that blew armored vehicles to flaming debris.

"Armor!" screamed one of the GDI soldiers, both hands shooting up in the air in wild joy as another deafening explosion echoed across the grounds of the Pentagon, and more massive forms rumbled through the dust and smoke. They were a storm of steel, ceramic, chobham, and hypervelocity railgun shells, a slow moving hurricane of fury and blood and engines and explosive death.

The Mammoth Tanks of the 2nd Heavy Armor were on the field.

* * *

She heard the boots close in behind her, and fought back tears. No. Not now, not when she was so close.

She raised her hands, numb with disbelief.

"Keep your hands up!" yelled one of the militia, moving in close behind her. His shadow fell over her.

"Get down on the ground," yelled the voice from the buggy. She considered leaping up and running, knowing that they would hesitate to shoot her. But they were too close, she was unarmed, and . . . .

So damn _close_.

Sandra slowly knelt to the ground, and started to lay down. By now, she heard more men gathering behind her, and she looked back. The Black Hand - the one whose helmet she'd destroyed - was with them. All of the Nod troops had weapons leveled at her.

"Get on the ground, now!" yelled the man in the buggy, and she laid down, closing her eyes as she felt the cold asphalt press against her cheek.

Noise. Tight, close, powerful, a shuddering burst of sound that ripped through the air. Sandra realized it was gunfire, and for an instant she clenched in terror - had they decided to just execute her?

She felt impacts all around her, and the rational part of her mind realized she was still alive. The gunfire itself was too loud, too fast, and too distant to be the soldiers' rifles.

And then it was quiet. She heard footsteps, running toward her, and looked up.

The trio of Nod soldiers and the Black Hand were down, their bodies riddled with bullets, blood splattered all over the alleyway. And the men rushing toward her were in familiar battle armor, holding GD2s-

"Ma'am, are you injured?" yelled one of the soldiers as he reached her, crouching beside her, while the other covered the alley. "Ma'am, are you hurt?"

"N-no," she stammered, shocked and confused and disoriented, even as the soldier - _a GDI soldier_ - helped her to her feet.

"Ma'am, we have to hurry," he said, leading her toward the buggy, and she understood. They'd ordered her to lay down so they could hose the alley with the buggy's machinegun. But what were GDI troops doing with a Nod buggy?

The side door opened, and the soldier helped her inside. As she clambered into the dark, tight, but infinitely welcome confines, the two soldiers climbed in after her. The buggy shot off immediately, the gunner swinging the weapon around in its turret to cover their rear.

_I'm safe, _she thought. It felt impossible. She was _safe_.

"Who . . . ?" she managed beginning to recover from the shock.

The man operating the machinegun looked down at her and grinned, and she stared. She _knew_ this man.

"Name's Havoc," replied the burly old man, nodding as he saw the look on Sandra's face. His smile faded. "And its fine. You're welcome."

* * *

From the west they loomed, striding forward with arms outstretched, and sent forth shards of ruby destruction that seared the eyes of the men watching below. Smoke and dust and flames rose from a field of broken corpses and twisted metal, wrapping about them and billowing off blackened carapace. They pushed through the hellish cloaks of dust and choking black stink, their eyes shining in the gloom, spears piercing into the defenders.

_"Deploy to cover the withdrawal. Pull everything back into the urbanized areas. We need the cover."_

From the north, riding a wave of billowing dust, they came on, belching thunderbolts that shattered the sky and the smoke and the eardrums of the cheering men at the wall. They were beasts, but more than that: a massive, rolling river of dust and steel and chobham and engine oil and escaping fumes and whirling fusion generators that scarred the land with their passing. They were inexorable, their weapons thundering, their engines roaring, and their hides impenetrable.

_"Maneuver two squads south to cover the southern approach. All units advance at a one hundred meter spread. Predators support from the rear, use the heavies for cover! Maneuver, goddammit, maneuver!"_

The Avatars met the Mammoths on the open field, and battle was joined.

The dust and the fire and the smoke and the hellish haze rose up, clouding the battlefield as crimson beams and blasting thunderbolts filled the air. The entire world shuddered, and every crack of a railgun firing was like a fist to the ears. For the men standing on or lying behind the wall, there was nothing out there they could see through the fog of war but the glowing lights of the Avatars and their laser cannons. Night vision was useless, thermal was obscured, and normal eyes couldn't hope to penetrate the maelstrom.

But there was noise. That was what they remembered. Both Nod soldiers fleeing to cover in the urban landscape and cheering GDI troops knew nothing of the battle that followed except the hammerfall of chaos: the thundering steps of Avatars, the deadly deep whine of their laser cannons firing, the grinding peals of the treads of the mechanized cavalry resounding like distorted battle cries, and the bone-cracking detonations of their blasting cannons.

It was a Ragnarok in a bottle. Judgment Day in a can. A little slice of the Four Horsemen charging in with horns sounding and seals breaking, of Fenrir snapping his jaws shut on the world, of the universe kicking Bahamut in the crotch to cause the world to tip into the cosmic seas. There was a prelude to the end of the world, and it smashed down and crushed its way through that square kilometer west of the Pentagon, grinding bodies and hurling earth and smashing steel and chobham and Tiberium-reactor-forged metals in a colliding wave of noise and fury.

The air was filled with explosions, and every so often a shape could be seen lumbering in the darkness: a Mammoth lumbering along, an Avatar slipping through the gloom with its guns burning, a Predator rushing past with turret hunting. Nine times, the ground would suddenly and violently shake, accompanied by a low, deep rumble. Each time, the hellish glare of the black shapes rising into the sky would diminish.

Then, finally, there was silence, save the ear-punishing rumble of idling tank engines.

The tank engines, and the ecstatic cheers of the men and women who had been manning the last line.

* * *

_"All Avatars down," _reported the electronic assistant, and Rawne snarled. He silenced the annoying mechanical voice, and punched up a direct line with Temple Prime. Almost immediately, he saw the Messiah's face, and the Commander paused, afraid to tell him of the new development.

"Your Imminence," Rawne began, trying to apologize. "I regret-"

"Save the sycophancy," Kane replied, standing in the heart of his war room and looking at a series of holographic displays. He looked up toward the camera Rawne was viewing him from, and then, he did something that terrified the Commander to the core of his soul.

Kane smiled.

"Report," Kane ordered, looking back toward the display. "Plainly, if you please."

"Yes," Rawne replied, composing himself. "My main forces are within sight of the Pentagon, but we were unable to seize control before GDI reinforcements arrived." He paused, checking the reports, and winced. "A GDI armored division has responded and is engaging our assault forces across the Washington D.C. front. They have heavy armor, artillery . . . Mammoth Tanks."

"The Mammoth, yes," Kane said, smiling, as if at some private joke. "GDI's favored workhorse." He glanced toward Rawne. "Why are you afraid of them? They are only machines."

"I am not afraid of them," Rawne replied, frowning. "I simply respect them."

"Yes, as well you should," Kane said, nodding.

"I am requesting reinforcements," Rawne adding, bringing up theater force strengths on his display. "My Avatars are down and my initial assault forces don't have the firepower to defeat a heavy armored division in a direct confrontation. If I move in our follow-up forces and reserves, I can have another hundred Avatars and a hundred thousand infantry and attached armor units inside the city in a few days. If we regroup, we can-"

"Withdraw your forces, while GDI tries to catch its breath," Kane ordered, looking up. Rawne froze.

"What?"

"Regroup and withdraw," Kane said, turning back to his display. "Consolidate your holdings and prepare for a counterattack."

"Your Imminence?" Rawne asked, confused. "GDI is still reeling. A swift follow-up can still break them, even if they have Mammoth Tanks and artillery units."

"They recovered faster than anticipated, but that is acceptable," Kane said, almost to himself. He turned to Rawne again. "Attacking now, charging directly into their forces, is playing to GDI's strength. We held a momentary advantage, and now that advantage is slipping. They want us to assault again, to put our armies into a meat grinder with theirs. GDI has always won in a straightforward engagement with the Brotherhood, you know this."

"But-"

"It is time we fell back to _our_ strengths, Commander," Kane said, and he smiled again. "We have played by GDI's rules, and now they will play the game by _ours_." The smile vanished. "Withdraw. Regroup. Fortify. GDI will fall upon our troops like an angry god in the coming days, and thus the faithful must be ready to withstand their wrath, so that when the time comes, GDI will feel _mine_."

"Yes," Rawne replied, closing his eyes and nodding. "I understand."

"Excellent, Commander," Kane declared. "Carry out your orders, and as always, have faith. In the Brotherhood . . . and in me."

Rawne nodded, and then Kane terminated the link, leaving Rawne alone in darkness.

* * *

The radio in Colonel Creden's ear chirped, and he switched channels to the division network.

"Hammer Actual, responding," he said.

_"Hammer Actual, Bravo Charlie One Pentagon," _came the reply, crisp and clear, and that made Creden sit up straight. A second later, his Mammoth's computer flashed a confirmation of the Battle Commander's authority.

_"Interrogative, Hammer Actual," _the Battle Commander said. _"Is there any reason your force has stopped its advance outside the Pentagon, over?"_

"Bravo Charlie One Pentagon," Creden replied. "We have orders to hold position to protect the Pentagon from attack, over."

_"Hammer Actual, those orders are rescinded. The best defense is a good offense. No reason to let Nod recover. Push them back; we need the entire area west of the Pentagon within five kilometers clear of enemy presence, over."_

"Understood, Pentagon," Creden replied, smiling, and cut the feed a few seconds later. He switched back to his regimental radio. "All units, Hammer Actual. New orders. Roll 'em up. Begin advance."

Then, with a shocking roar of one hundred tank engines and the deafening howl of a hundred and twenty cannons, the Predators and Mammoths of the Second Heavy Armor Division began the first GDI counterattack of the Third Tiberium War.

* * *

Amidst the blood, corpses, smoke, and debris, Cale Winters slowly limped his way onto the wall, and looked out at the departing Mammoth Tanks. He slowly lowered himself back down to the ground, and took off his helmet. He stared at it in his hands, noticing for the first time a crack in the visor.

He turned to look around, and found he'd lain down beside a corpse: another private, a young woman whose name had been burned off her chestplate, her helmet missing, slack jawed and staring into the air, half-lidded. She would have been decent-looking, were it not for the blood that had bubbled out of her mouth and the shrapnel wound in her temple.

Cale Winters reached over, closing the dead woman's eyes, and then laid his head back against the wall. He hoped they'd stop cheering soon.

* * *

A kilometer west, Mitchell Colt met his saviors face-to-face, moments before they hurried downstairs to where Penlan lay, still unconscious. After some consideration and a quick contact with their commander, they sent off their exact location and bunkered down inside the apartment to wait for reinforcements.

Colt made sure to collect everyone's dog tags, and quietly wondered how many people in the next squad he was assigned to would be killed.

* * *

Two kilometers south, Allen stood over the bodies of three dead militia and a slain Black Hand. He peered over the corpses for a moment, and then at the bullet-riddled walls on either side. After a few seconds, he sent a cancellation order to the remains of his platoon, and then ordered them to regroup a kilometer west.

They'd lost the prisoner and a half-dozen soldiers, including one of his brothers. How unfortunate.

* * *

Another kilometer south, Sandra Telfair stepped out of the captured Nod buggy, and was helped across the warehouse to the resistance force's medic, who examined her. A few minutes later, she heard the Predator and other assorted vehicles in the building rumble to life, and looked up in time to see Colonel Nick Parker clamber on top of the Predator and urge it onward.

She wondered to herself what he was planning, before settling back against the wall and closing her eyes. She was asleep moments later.

* * *

Five kilometers west, an orderly led a blind militia private to a medical truck for evacuation. Mari Marona considered refusing the assistance, but knew that would be idiotic, and let herself be led out by the arm, secure in the knowledge that soon she'd be back in fighting shape, thanks to Commander Rawne.

Soon, Marona promised herself. Soon.

* * *

Some distance to the north, Jose Alvarez fitted his helmet back on. He paused, admiring one of the surviving portraits of one of the American Presidents, before continuing on, hefting his flamethrower rifle. He stepped outside the White House a few minutes later, and looked up at the Nod banners waving across the edifice's front.

GDI was counter-attacking. Best to meet their advance soon.

* * *

One kilometer north of the Pentagon, a team of medics rushed into the heart of an embattled GDI force. The First Pentagon Guards had been surrounded by Nod troops, and only now had just found relief when the Second Heavy Armor had arrived to rescue them. The medics moved the middle of the battalion's position, but when they arrived, they found the man they'd been sent to assist lying limp on the broken asphalt, having bled out from a shrapnel wound to the aorta.

Reginald Franklin of the First Pentagon Guards had been killed trying to break through to the 7th Reserve. He had never seen or even spoken to any of the 7th, and his last words had been an angry curse at Commander Karrde for sending him on this fool's errand.

* * *

A half a kilometer west of the Pentagon, in the midst of a ruined building, a battered form in shrapnel-riddled powered armor lay beneath a pile of bricks. The figure inside shifted, coughed, and lingered in a world of pure, blind pain.

Victor Wallace cursed under his breath, and slid back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Five kilometers west, Logan Rawne stared at his holographic display, surrounded by darkness, and asked himself how everything had fallen apart so quickly.

Slowly, his arms heavy from an exhaustion he hadn't felt in a long time, he went to work organizing the retreat. In the name of Kane.

For once, that phrase meant little to him.

* * *

As the Mammoth Tanks rumbled off to battle, Alexander Karrde let the noise and the chaos slip away. He found a chair, and dropped down into it. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and his hands trembled.

A few seconds later, he slowly rose while rubbing his eyes, and, with steady fingers, keyed his Comcom to bring up the latest casualty estimates, and to direct his belated air cover.

He had work to do.

* * *

Forty-nine and a half astronomic units from the primary star of the system, the Mind awoke, for a single second. It looked, it catalogued, and it analyzed.

It went back to sleep just as quickly. Nothing interesting had yet happened on the third planet. All factors and readings were progressing at the predicted rate.

* * *

Deep in the land once known as Sarajevo, in the depths of the holiest site of Nod, Kane settled back into his chair. The tips of his fingers came together before him as he looked upon the world and the pawns that danced across it - and beyond - and smiled.

Now, the game could truly begin.

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes_**: Yeah, that took too long to write. I blame Resident Evil 5.

And that's it for the battle at the Pentagon. Next chapter covers the follow-up, including the recapture of the White House. Expect Boyle to return, along with more Mammoth badassery, and more Black Hand Taco Fiestas.

Yes, I did finally get around to watching most of _Generation Kill_ while writing this chapter, too.

Until next chapter . . . .


	18. Chapter XVII: Low Tide

_**Chapter Seventeen: Low Tide **_

_Yea verily, though I charge through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am driving a house-sized mass of "fuck you."_

_-Anonymous Mammoth Tank crewman  
_

Task Force Centaur crouched low, hidden among the buildings of Washington D.C., the engines of the hundred combat vehicles growling with predatory hunger.

There was smoke and dust in the air, dark streaks that clawed across the blue-gray sky and leaving dark rips in their wake. Thunder rolled in from the west, the cacophony of armored warfare rolling together in a continuous rumble of destruction. The scent of fire, burnt glass, and scorched flesh wafted through the air, intermixed with the diesel stench of running engines and the tang of cordite and gunpowder.

Commander Alexander Karrde sat on the turret of a Predator that went by the name of _Hundred Fists_, the armored cords of its railgun power supply coiled around his feet and the black, offset barrel raised in the air beside him. He was vulnerable to snipers, he new, but he also knew that, in his combat battledress, he was indistinguishable from any other GDI soldier. More importantly, up here on top of the tank, he had a commanding view of the surroundings, a view that the detached satellite and UAV recon from his Comcom simply couldn't offer.

To his east and west, thirty Predator tanks waited in a series of five columns, each headed by a Mammoth and flanked by a half-dozen APCs loaded with Armored Fist platoons. Pitbulls were positioned on their flanks as well, securing the waiting armored battalion's inevitable advance, and Orcas crisscrossed the sky overhead, firing rockets and chainguns at unseen targets half a kilometer north.

Karrde checked his Comcom, frowned, and looked back over his waiting armored battalions. He checked to make sure every unit was in ready condition, hearing the call-and-return of their individual callsigns in his ears while waiting for the signal that the area ahead was clear.

And as he waited, he considered the last two days of the war, and his role in it all.

* * *

_Twenty-four hours earlier_

"_Can I see your authorization, sir?"_

_In the back of his limousine, Director Redmond Boyle looked up. His driver was handing over the authorization papers, and even though the Director was hip-deep in incoming reports, he took the moment to pay attention to what was happening. He lowered the window so he could get a clear, unimpeded view of the battlefield._

_They were passing the outer edge of the combat zone from what he was aware of, moving between the secured sections of the city and the Pentagon combat area. He could distantly hear the thumping of firing artillery, though he had no idea what kind of weapons platform they were using._

_Outside, Boyle could see ruined buildings, and the corpses of destroyed vehicles. Fires still burned in some parts of the city, and he caught the scent of flaming rubber from still-ablaze tires. Though he didn't see many corpses, Boyle did see the other human detritus of war: bloodstains, discarded weapons, and pieces of armor. Dead animals and errant body parts were scattered here and there, and he would periodically spot the corpses of Nod soldiers who hadn't been cleared away yet. The bodies of civilians and GDI troops, however, were nowhere to be found._

_That was fine, Boyle thought. Let the animals lie in the streets for a while, where they belonged._

_They drove past the checkpoint a moment later, with a pair of heavy vehicles – Pitbulls, if he remembered the name correctly – driving in escort. They wheeled down streets littered with crushed and ruined cars, with squads of armored troops moving down the streets, going building to building with APCs covering them from the streets. Twice, their progression was held up as armored vehicles blocked the roads, and while Redmond knew he could have ordered them out of the way, he wanted to foster some trust and respect in the troops who were suddenly under his command. Best not to appear like a meddling politician, he guessed._

_And what a force he had found himself commanding. The second he'd emerged from the underground shelter, Redmond had found himself inundated with reports and information from every Blue Zone and every Yellow Zone under GDI administration. The news was sobering: by the end of the first day of the war, GDI had suffered nearly two and a half percent attrition. In terms of manpower, that meant half a million troops dead, in a single day of fighting. They were bringing the reserves up, which would result in a total active military force of over fifty million troops. The combat was intensifying across the globe as GDI reacted to the counterattack, bringing its sheer, overwhelming firepower to bear on the Nod invaders._

_Fifty million fighting men and women, with one and a half billion civilians, all looking to him. That was both a thrilling and terrifying thought. He was the acting Director of the Global Defense Initiative – the single most powerful man on the planet. The weight of that responsibility was . . . _staggering_._

_As their convoy moved further into the area and closer to the Pentagon, Boyle found himself seeing much larger concentrations of troops. Convoys of trucks and tanks rumbled past, and he felt the vibrations of the massive war machines. Twice he found his little convoy circling around the titanic specters of Mammoth Tanks, the enormous machines rattling his teeth even as they sat motionless, twin cannons longer than his limousine extending outwards. He periodically heard jets flying overhead, and several times formations of Orca gunships flew past, heading west toward Nod battlefield or east to reload their munitions._

_East. He knew what lay to the east, and as his limousine approached the Pentagon, he knew that the shocked, terrified, and confused billions would need something to reinforce their belief that GDI was devoted in its goal to protect them._

_They passed the ruined outer perimeter of the Pentagon's defenses, and Boyle promised himself that as soon as this region was secure he would have a memorial for the countless numbers who had died over the last twenty-four hours. Especially for the troops whose blood he could see vividly staining the walls overlooking the field of carnage that was the ground outside the Pentagon._

_They would be honored, he promised himself. They would _all_ be honored and avenged. _

_They parked outside the entrance to the Pentagon, and he emerged into the smoky, battle-scarred air, walking cane in hand. From the passenger side of the limousine, his aide, a young woman name Kate, emerged with his briefcase. She paused as he slowly turned around, taking in the aftermath, the sights and smells and sounds of a battle won, and nodded._

_He agreed with the old saying. The only thing as forlorn as a battle lost was a battle won. He gestured to his aide, and together they headed inside, Kate lingering behind him as he strode forward, doing his best to hide the limp he'd picked up years past with his cane. _

_Security was the chore he expected, but Redmond didn't argue with it. He descended into the main complex deep underground, heading for the command center, where he knew his highest-ranking surviving general officer was hip-deep in command work. _

_Overhead, he could hear one of the secretaries or lower officers - he didn't know what - speaking over the intercom, telling the General that he was arriving, but Boyle knew he had to make an entrance, so he powered on in. The general officers, he believed, needed to know both how grateful he was and to feel his authority, so he didn't wait for the woman to finish and simply strode into the command center._

_Boyle caught sight of the general, peaking with a haggard officer of equally high rank, it appeared, and wasted no time._

_"General Granger!" he called, striding inside while doing his best to hide his limp. He walked toward the balding, heavyset man, and extended his hand. "Redmond Boyle! This is an honor!" The general turned, surprised and bit bewildered at his sudden entrance, and the second he raised his hand. Boyle took it and shook it, quick and hard. No doubt the man would appreciate his candor and straightforwardness - military types always did._

_"Truly!" Boyle continued, smiling at the confused general, but for his part, Granger seemed to quickly recover. The moment Boyle released his hand he slipped into a straight, proper military stance._

_"You had no idea I was coming," Boyle said, "I apologize, but I was touring the area, and I wanted to stop by and offer my gratitude for what you're doing."_

_"Well, don't thank me, Director," Granger said, and Boyle liked him immediately. He had a strong, authoritative voice, and now that he'd reoriented, the General's presence and authority could be keenly felt. Granger gestured to the man he'd been speaking to. "Thank the Commander."_

_Boyle turned, and then realized whom he was addressing. This was Commander Karrde, the officer who had led a few hundred men against ten thousand Nod soldiers and fought them to a standstill. One of the man's eyes glittered a cold blue, contrasting the brown of his other eye, and was framed with dull steel, no doubt an implant. He features were haggard, and a dark circle sat beneath his working eye. No doubt he was exhausted from his endeavors._

_"Commander," Boyle offered with a smile. "Great to have you on our side. Your efforts on the battlefield have been an inspiration to us all." _

_Karrde opened his mouth to speak, but Boyle continued, not done yet. He would give the Commander his moment in a second. For now, he needed to make his orders - and the needs of GDI - clear to both men present. And thus, a little speech._

_"But I encourage us not to rest on our laurels," the Director said. "We cannot be content to take back what was ours in the first place! If Nod wants a war, let's give them one. A war to end their reign of terror once and for all. But first things first." He held up his cane, gesturing to the Commander emphatically, to make sure he understood the gravity of the mission he was about to receive._

_"Finish what you started here in DC," he commanded. "Take back this city! Show the world the tide is turning!" He paused, dramatically, and his smile grew._

_"By the end of tomorrow," he said, "The White House needs to be _back_ in GDI hands."_

* * *

_Beneath his helmet, Brother-Captain Alvarez frowned and scowled as he strode across the makeshift camp that had sprung up around the White House. He could hear cries and screaming from the tents and the makeshift barracks they'd set up within the perimeter afforded by the array of shredder and laser turrets._

_An aid station had been set up on the lawn. He would have preferred that the incoming wounded by sheltered inside the safety of the White House itself, but he knew that if GDI attacked in force, they would need to retreat quickly, and the bunkers beneath the White House would offer them little chance to flee once the enemy came._

_He would not leave his wounded in the hands of the GDI animals. He knew his Brothers would be tortured and killed, and the Sisters would fare even worse at their hands._

_He continued walking the length of the camp, keeping one eye on the incoming data feeds on his helmet while watching through the visual feeds with the other. What he saw left him in a state of unease._

_UAV and human recon confirmed a GDI force massing to the south, which included several Mammoth Tanks, as well as numerous other armored vehicles. His troops were facing multiple battalion-strength enemy elements, with air support covering them. Countering them was what was left of the Damocles strike group: a mixture of armored and infantry elements pieced together from the two regiment-sized forces that had assaulted the city hours ago, only to get mauled when GDI's 2__nd__ Heavy Armored had passed through. Damocles was now down to roughly one and a half battalions of mixed forces, totaling about eight hundred men, spread in a wide circle. They had secured a corridor some miles northwest of the White House that would allow them to withdraw back to the main Nod lines to their west – Nod lines that were slowly rolling backward._

_The only thing keeping him in place was the fact that they still had friendly troops retreating to their location with wounded. If he and the remnants of Damocles pulled out now, those troops would be trapped inside a hostile city. Jose Alvarez was going to hold his position as long as it was tenable to do so, and get as many of his Brothers and Sisters to safety that he could._

_He snarled inwardly, pausing next to a shredder control point – a small armored structure housing a half-dozen soldiers manning an array of guns scattered along the west side of the inner perimeter. Alvarez had repeatedly requested reinforcements to help hold his position. He'd gotten nothing except the fighting men who'd fallen back to his position – apparently, the Nod armies were in retreat, pushed back on the defensive in the face of the steadily-mobilizing GDI counterassault._

_The only good news was that he had an unusually large number of Avatars on hand, more than seven of them, which would do plenty of damage and buy them time to engage and hold off the GDI troops while evacuating. The wounded who needed immediate medical attention had been shipped back to the field hospitals to the rear, while the more lightly wounded and the stabilized were waiting transport. Some of them had volunteered to return to combat, which he had allowed. They needed every man and woman on the line._

_They sure as hell were not getting relief troops any other way._

_For the fourth time this hour, Alvarez opened up a radio link with central command. He didn't expect to get through, but to his surprise he was patched through within seconds._

"_Damocles, this is Babylon," came a familiar voice._

"_Rawne!" Jose said, feeling sudden elation. "Logan, its Jose!"_

"_Read you, Jose," Rawne replied, his voice a bit strained. "You okay out there?"_

"_Negative," he replied, and the Black Hand started pacing across the camp. "I'm still out here at Grid Bravo-Six-Seven."_

"_The White House?" Rawne said, a frown in his voice. "Jose, what the hell are you still doing out there?"_

"_Pulling elements of Damocles back together," Alvarez replied. "We've got hundreds of troops still out there in the city. I'm trying to pull them all back before GDI overruns this area."_

"_Jose, there's no way we can hold that position for much longer," Rawne said. _

"_I've already got two battalions of GDI armor closing in, getting ready to attack," Alvarez said, shaking his head. "If I had some reinforcements, we could hold."_

"_Negative, we are unable to do that," Rawne replied._

"_Can't do it?" Alvarez hissed at his friend. "My men are dying out here-"_

"_This comes from Kane himself," Rawne said. "We've got orders to pull back. All units east of the Potomac are to fall back and regroup, including yours."_

"_I've got five hundred wounded and hundreds more men who haven't regrouped yet," Alvarez growled. "You want me to-"_

"_I'm not going to order you to pull out, Jose," Rawne said, tired. "GDI's 2__nd__ Heavy smashed my men to pieces. I've taken nearly fifty percent casualties. Everything I have is tied up simply trying to hold back the GDI countercharge. I've got nothing to reinforce you with."_

"_Logan-" Alvarez hissed._

"_You can hold or stay, it's up to you," Rawne said, voice exhausted. "Just know that you're on your own if you stay where you are. Babylon out."_

_Brother-Captain Alvarez snarled quietly as the connection with his friend was cut. He couldn't blame Rawne for the situation he was in, but that didn't suppress the urge to punch him in the face regardless. After a few seconds of vicious fuming, he opened a channel to his company commanders._

_"Get the wounded moving," he ordered. "I want all of our injured loaded up and evacuated as soon as possible." There were questions from his officers about reinforcements, but he cut them off and shut down his radio, before stalking away._

* * *

_The thrumming of generators sounded in his ears, and the fumes hovered overhead like a pall, drifting down to give him the occasional whiff of nasty diesel._

_It was in these rough accommodations - the primary power stations for the Pentagon's external defense network - that the remnants of the 103rd Recon Division's 4th Battalion had been billeted. They were nominally tasked with guard duty, but Karrde knew that this was just a resting assignment. _

_Normally they would need a larger billet - warehouses or apartment buildings or something similar, possibly field barracks and tents - but with no more than a hundred and ten combat-capable troops to the battalion's numbers, they required less room. It was a cold decision made by a detached administrative corps EVA, but it made sense._

_Many sections of the power station were shut down, due to the damage they'd taken in the battle, and most of the perimeter defenses were offline anyway. Only one of the station's generators was active now, and most of the internal space was taken up by sleeping bags and resting soldiers. _

_He walked among them, men and women who were stripped down to gray and brown undershirts and fatigues, with many of the men walking around shirtless. Nearly all of them bore wounds and bandages, and he saw faces pitted and darkened with blackheads and as-yet-unwashed soot and grime. The reactor plant only had a few showers for workers, and there was a line of troops waiting for them._

_Karrde expected the men and women under his command to have despised him when he walked in. He had sat back safely inside the Pentagon while they had been mauled by the most vicious Nod attack in decades. They had bled and screamed and two in five were dead, with another two in five critically wounded. Every person in the battalion had lost friends, squadmates, and in some cases actual family. The unit was mixed-gender, which meant more than a few active couples, and many of those had suffered from wounds or death. They were battered, exhausted, hurting, and every man and woman sported that weary stare._

_And yet every man and woman who saw him rose or smiled, or nodded, or offers words of thanks and respect as he passed. Salutes were offered, completely against regulation for a combat zone, but they were not disrespectful. When the troops said "sir" it contained pride, not condemnation. It had confused him at first._

_The recon soldiers had assembled in the main meeting for the power plant's workers shortly after he arrived, sitting or standing or - in more than one case - lying down. But every soldier watched him intently, even the most bone-weary warrior._

_"Men, women," Karrde said, standing at the front of the meeting room that nearly a hundred soldiers had crammed into._

_"I'm not for speeches, and I'm not going to tell you what you already know," he continued. "In my eyes, in regiment's and division's and in High Command's, you're all goddamned heroes. That' not what I'm here for." He frowned._

_"You may have heard that Director Redmond Boyle is now acting head of civilian government at GDI," he continued. "And he's made short-term orders explicitly clear. He wants the White House retaken, as a symbol."_

_There was a quiet rustle around the room, but the troopers were either too tired or too disciplined to start talking loudly._

_"I'd call the piled of dead Avatars out there and the general Nod retreat enough of one, but he disagrees, and he makes the rules, so that's the breaks," Karrde said. "I'm being put in command of one of 2nd Heavy's armored regiments, and am tasked with retaking the White House. That's more than enough firepower, but I'd feel better with a good recon element at my front."_

_He stopped, and looked around the room at all of the exhausted soldiers before him._

_"I know you're tied, some of you are still hurt but won't admit it, and most of you have lost friends under my command," he said. "That's why I'm not ordering any of you. You've earned your rest. However, I am looking for volunteers to run recon elements north into DC and cover the armored advance. If no one feels up to it . . . ."_

_He trailed off as hands shot up. Dozens of arms rose from around the room, with more going up every second. A tightness filled Karrde's chest as he saw men so tired they had to lay down wearily rise and raise their hands to join in. He finally raised his own to tell them to put theirs down._

_"Thank you," he said, and tried to keep from choking on the unexpected wave of volunteers. "Major Koen, I need you to pick out six squads from the volunteers to run recon for me." The major nodded, and Karrde gave them all a smile. "I . . . appreciate this." _

_Nods, smiles, and a few hoots came back from the tired collection of soldiers._

_A few minutes later, Karrde was outside the stinking, cramped power station, and as soon as he was out of sight of any of the soldiers from 4th Battalion, he paused. His hands - clean and unsoiled from any of the fighting - rose to his eyes and wiped away the moisture he felt gathering there. _

_He took a long breath, and then moved on._

* * *

His head hurt. His muscles were sore, his eyes were burning, his mouth was dry and lips were cracked. His hands were sore from tightly gripping his rifle, and his feet hurt from being cooped up in his combat boots for nearly two days straight. Cuts marked his hands and his face from where his old HUD had been damaged in the fighting, and the laser burns along his shoulders and back still screamed at him.

He'd picked up a nasty case of diarrhea even with his rebreather. The bombardment had torn open sewer mains, and the combination of dirt, dust, gutted bodies, smoke, and exposed sludge and sewage had made the city a crawling, festering place of disease.

Every part of his body told him to stop, turn around, crawl back to a nice safe bunk, and shit out his guts into a porta-john before collapsing into a bed and sleeping for two weeks straight.

Instead, Corporal Mitchell Colt crawled forward, an inch at a time, covered in a drab, urban-gray camouflage cloak that, when still, made him resemble a mound of gravel and debris. The thermal cloak built into the ghillie suit made him invisible to thermal sensors, and the combined advantages of the two allowed him to slowly, ever so slowly, creep up on the Nod position ahead.

He had every reason to be stealthy. He was a half-kilometer north of the thousand-man taskforce Commander Karrde was commanding, waiting for the go-ahead from the recon elements. Two dozen survivors from 4th Battalion's C Company were methodically advancing through the urban landscape, passing through and around ruined buildings, creeping over fallen bodies and burnt-out vehicles, toward the main positions of the Nod troops surrounding the White House.

Corporal Colt, like all of 4th's C Company, was trained for recon work. He was a good soldier, but his specialty had always been getting to his target unseen and observing, and then either reporting, withdrawing, or marking it. And now, he had an honest-to-God recon mission.

A clatter of boots came from up ahead, low and quiet, but with his newly-replaced helmet's amplified hearing, he caught it like a rattling chain of gunfire. Colt froze, settling into the darkness of an alleyway, his cloak settling around him. In a heartbeat, he was just another pile of debris.

Two Nod soldiers ran past an intersection ahead. They paused at the corner, checking down the street, and then ran into a nearby apartment building.

Scouts. Colt waited until they were out of sight, eyes searching the urban landscape, and finally rose once he was assured nothing was there. He turned his head a few inches to his right, and an instant later the point-to-point transmitter fired off a quick signal.

Another innocuous debris pile slid forward on the other side of the street, and a minute later, as Colt spotted the sentries peeking out the windows of the nearby building, it slipped inside the structure. Right before the other recon soldier slipped inside, Colt sent a second signal, detailing the locations of the sentries.

Two minutes later, one of the sentries vanished. A minute afterward, the second one fell out of sight. An all-clear signal flashed into Colt's HUD, and a minute later, the two near-invisible soldiers were moving down the street again, picking their way through the ruin and debris to their target.

It took them an hour, and another pair of sentries closer inside the Nod perimeter, before they reached their destination. They had to pause and hit the pavement when a pair of recon bikes whizzed past on another roadway, but they continued on without slowing or directing their high-powered scanners their way. The two soldiers found a low three-story building and moved inside, taking careful time to clear each room and making sure no Nod troops were camping out within. Once the building was cleared, the two scouts moved up onto the roof, and Colt felt his heartbeat pick up.

Looming ahead, two hundred and fifty meters away, were four Nod Avatars. They stood among the wreckage of a building that had once been a GDI administrative headquarters. The area had since been converted into a makeshift defensive point, with debris tugged and piled around the area to provide bunkers from infantry and parked armor. UAV recon had already picked out more than a dozen Scorpion tanks hidden in the debris, along with emplaced weapons, including surface-to-air missile batteries mixed in with shredders and laser turrets.

Whoever had ordered the placement of the batteries feared incoming GDI airstrikes: the launchers had been placed slightly further out than the rest of the defensive emplacements, likely to intercept Firehawks or Orcas before they could bomb the Nod position. Reasonable, but counterable all the same.

He continued creeping along the rooftop, watching the Nod defensive position, and finally, he saw his target. It was a small, dome-like structure, hidden under camo netting. Cables ran from it to the individual launchers, and were well-concealed by dirt and debris, but to his trained eyes, he could see them clear as day. He slowly raised his rifle, leveling it at the control bunker for the missile batteries.

The UAV recon wouldn't have been enough to direct a general air or artillery strike, as the drones couldn't stick around long enough to verify a target without getting picked up and shot down. Also, UAVs could be compromised, and security protocol demanded human eyes on site to verify an artillery target. And most importantly of all, the battle plan had a very specific target in mind.

"This is Caprica Two-Six. Transmitting visual. Two AA battery hubs sighted on west side of target. Lasing control points, coordinates inbound. Advised, danger close."

"_Two-Six, Hammer Actual. Danger close acknowledged. We have target coordinates. Be advised, find cover. Bombardment will be heavy."_

"Actual, Two-Six, acknowledged. Lasers off-site, finding cover."

Colt pulled his laser sight off the target while checking with his partner, who was doing the same, and fell back inside the building. In older times, or against mobile targets like tanks, laser sighting was needed to remain on target to bring in an airstrike. With EVA units and a fixed target, however, all Colt had to do was splash with his laser, upload the coordinates, and the EVA would lock the target with GPS and guide the bombers in.

Sliding back inside cover, Colt settled in and waited for the rain.

* * *

"_Damocles Alpha-Two, Damocles Actual. Report."_

Major Arturo Contrera hovered somewhere between reality and dreams. He could feel electrical impulses running through his fingers, curling around his bones and rolling up through the nerves that connected to his spinal column, joining with a hundred thousand other impulses spiking up through his body and flowing through his brain stem. The implants in his mind sorted out the incoming data, turning it into visual and auditory input.

"Damocles Alpha-Two, all clear." The words that escaped his mouth were as much data as they were actual audible tones, sent back through the feeds running into his skin and out through the machine.

Within Contrera's brain was a second, colder line of thought, a mind of acidic logic and unyielding metal. The personal EVA that lurked inside the system with him controlled the flow of impulses and data, regulating the machinery and delicate systems within the one hundred and thirty tons of metal, ceramic, and plastic that loomed over the landscape.

"_Copy Alpha-Two,"_ Damocles Actual answered. _"Scimitar Seven-Nine reports contact at Potomac river crossing. Remain on alert."_

"Understood and acknowledged, Actual," the major replied, searching the cityscape before him with the myriad of sensors mounted within the glittering red optics array set into the front of his Avatar.

Contrera's Avatar was as much a part of him as his own arms and legs. Sitting in the chair at the heart of the Avatar, with hundreds of individual electrical feeds running into carefully implanted sockets and nodes in his body, Contrera was as much a machine as he was a person. With the EVA unit in his suit occupying the same cyberspace as his own mind, Contrera lingered in an alien landscape of incoming data that was shaped into a virtual existence. It was a surreal vision of the real world: twenty different types of incoming sensor data superimposed on one another yet filtered into individual interpretations of reality that he saw all at once, with numerical values drifting next to every object and sensor reading worth noting.

There was no other way to pilot such a machine. The crude mecha in the Second Tiberium War had suffered in that the man and the machine were not sufficiently integrated to control the walker's delicate movements. The Brotherhood had corrected that failing by making man and machine inseparable. Some had suggested cutting out the man entirely and leaving the Avatar piloted by machine intelligences.

Those fools had forgotten CABAL.

"_Damocles Alpha-Two, be advised, friendly convoy incoming to your south."_

"Actual, do you know who they are?" Contreras asked, and the EVA transmitted. He shifted, bringing his sensors to bear, and peered through four different sets of incoming data streams – thermal, satellite thermal, UAV thermal, and visual.

"_Reported survivors of Strike Group Babylon, Alpha-Two,"_ replied Actual. Contreras nodded, at least in the virtual world. In reality, he was locked in place in his chair, absolutely still save for the motions of his mouth and the rise and fall of his chest.

Members of Commander Rawne's bloodied and mauled assault force had been filtering in over the last two days. Many carried wounded and dead, and others were engaging GDI pursuit forces in rear-guard actions. Most of them had fled west to rejoin the main Nod armies, but those cut off had fled east and north, toward the White House.

Contrera's Avatar loomed over a defensive strongpoint established west of the White House. Buildings rose up on either side of him, immense apartment complexes for GDI's rich and privileged, most of whom had fled in the face of the Nod advance. The soldiers had smashed and raided those rich apartments, and now manned them as defensive points along the roads. A couple platoons of infantry and pair of Scorpions sat on the road before the Avatar, using the massive war machine as a backstop and support and in turn protecting it from close-in attack.

The men were on edge; their two platoons were the only troops on this part of the line, which was spread out to defend a wide area. Sooner or later, GDI would fall on them, too.

So be it, Contrera decided. He had been blessed to be implanted within the heart of an Avatar of Kane. He would honor that trust and gift by burning the infidels from the world until his armor failed and the virtual world collapsed.

The convoy came into sight, and Contrera frowned. He saw a pair of Reckoner APCs and a couple of attack buggies, with the light vehicles leading. All bore the scars of combat, but that wasn't what made him frown. It was the small size of the "convoy" – only four vehicles.

They were suffering horribly out there.

The convoy paused at the checkpoint, and he saw a burly man in goggles lean out of the buggy and how his identification. The soldiers at the checkpoint waved them through just as quickly, with an almost dismissive attitude, which made Contrera frown. He opened his radio.

"Lieutenant Darren, what the hell are you doing?" he snapped as the transports rolled through the checkpoint.

"_Sir?"_ came back the confused response.

"You barely challenged that convoy," he snapped, even as he stepped aside to make sure the convoy got clear. The last Reckoner was rolling through the checkpoint, while the first one was driving past the Avatar. "You've received notice on GDI infiltrators, and we're the only security on this side of the defense line. Let another convoy through just because they're driving Nod vehicles and-"

Contrera's vision exploded as every incoming feed was flooded with a flare of radiation and heat and sound. At the same time, the Avatar rocked backward, and alert signals flashed into his mind. The EVA was reporting massive concussive and shrapnel damage to the machine's legs, and Contrera was vividly aware of a shockingly powerful blow that hurled his Avatar backwards into the building. More than a hundred tons of metal and ceramic slammed into the building, which fell apart under the toppling walker.

Pain lanced through him. The virtual reality around him flashed and faded, feeds from nearly half of his sensors dead or sputtering. He raised his arms, pushing against the debris of the building even as it collapsed around him, and tried to stand. Warning signals came from the legs, and his EVA reported that both of the Avatar's lower limbs had been severely damaged. One was a twisted wreck, while the other was almost completely severed.

The Nod checkpoint had been obliterated. Both Scorpions were ruined, on lifted up and thrown aside, while the other was a burning wreck. The majority of the infantry were little more than vapor and shreds of cloth raining down around the blasted road, while the remainder were scattered in multiple pieces. The road itself was cratered in the middle where the Reckoners had been parked, and pieces of the APCs were lodged into the mauled facades of the wealthy apartments.

And now there was gunfire. A GDI Predator tank rolled up the street, firing as it advanced, and GDI infantry poured up the road, one platoon, then two, chased by APCs and Pitbulls. The two Nod buggies sat at the other end of the street, firing at unseen targets, suppressing them while their reinforcements rolled up behind.

Smoke clouded his Avatar's vision, and through the virtual world, Contrera was aware of vibrations on the exterior of his armor. He tried focusing, mind racing through the pain, and he managed to resolve a single humanoid figure running up beside and clambering onto the front of the massive walker. The figure stepped in front of the cameras.

It was a man, clad in militia fatigues, but huge and burly. Contrera realized it was the same man who had spoken to the guards at the checkpoint. He pulled aside his goggles, grinned, and gave the camera a one-fingered salute.

His other hand held a satchel charge.

"Save Kane a spot in hell!" the man yelled, audio receptors picking up his voice clearly. The satchel charge plopped down on the front of the Avatar, and the man scrambled away.

Five seconds later, there was a hint of pressure, and heat, and the virtual world collapsed.

* * *

"The hell is that?" Karrde said, sitting up and looking north. He could hear two immense explosions, one after the other, followed by the distant, low rattle of massed gunfire. He opened his comm channels. "All Capricas, interrogative. Do you see what that is?"

"_Caprica One-Five, negative, over."_

"_Caprica Two-Three, seeing lots of activity. Nod troops moving, over. Looks like an engagement."_

"_Caprica Three-Three, got explosions west of the White House. Someone's attacking them, over."_

Karrde frowned, checking the local battle network on his Comcom.

"Task Force Centaur, any units west of the White House?"

A chorus of negatives came back. He looked north again, and ordered the UAVs to move around to get a better look at the battlezone, while also trying to get better satellite coverage. A moment later, there was a flare of light on one of the drones' feeds, and the feed cut out. He pulled them back just as quickly and sent them around the anti-air defense batteries.

From what he could see, a battle was raging west of the White House, but the attackers were difficult to see, moving through the streets. Columns of smoke rose up from the nearby buildings, and he could see infantry mixed in with both Nod vehicles and a GDI Predator.

Whoever they were, they were either reckless or suicidal, as they were outnumbered twice over at least by the Nod troops they were fighting. However, the Nod troops were falling back, having little armor support, and no Avatars to support them, but even as he watched, the Nod forces located at the main defensive point – more than half their troops – were starting to move north.

Snap decision time.

"Task Force Centaur, advance now. Repeat, advance _now_!" He switched channels. "All Capricas, mark Avatars and track with lasers!" He switched channels again. "Talons, be advised, targets are mobile. Active telemetry inbound."

The Firehawk pilots came back, acknowledging his orders, and a moment later, the tanks began to rumble forward. Karrde nodded, glad that he'd chosen the 2nd Heavy Armor. A lesser-disciplined force might have hesitated, caught off-guard by the sudden order, by the 2nd Heavy was moving in seconds.

The hungry predator roared, and pounced on its prey with a shout of grinding treads and screaming engines.

* * *

"Talons, pump your tanks and go full thrust," ordered Major Robert Norman, commander of Talon Squad. "We've just gotten orders to engage at all speed. Come in altitude one-two-one, right behind me."

Major Norman suited actions to words and engaged his Firehawk's afterburners. In a heartbeat, he was screaming across the sky. Behind him, five other Firehawks followed suit. He felt the familiar pressure of increasing G-forces as he hurtled across the sky. He wished Talon had been upgraded with the latest-generation boosters, which would have allowed his squad to rocket up into the upper atmosphere and strike down at even greater speeds, but that would have required a complete refit of his 'Hawks and a serious upgrade to the squad's Gabriel AIs.

The EAA flashed updates onto Norman's helmet HUD, and through the swirling sea of incoming data, he picked out their targets. His thumb rested easily on the firing stud of his control stick.

Smoke choked the sky, and fires blazed throughout the city below as they shot north. He couldn't hope to pick out individual soldiers or small vehicles, but he did see the obvious signs of an armored assault to the west: a steady stream of explosions and rising dust clouds, spread along a lengthy ribbon of urban terrain that gradually spread and shifted westward.

He looked back to the north, and knew they would be engaging in seconds. Within moments, the insistent warning of a pending radar lock began to sound in his ears.

"_**Targets are sorted, Major,"**_ Gabriel reported in his ear.

"Copy that," Norman said, and his fingers tightened around the thumb trigger.

The Firehawks carried a wide range of bomb types for air-to-ground operations, but the most common toy in their arsenal were sets of versatile one-thousand-pound smart-guided armor-piercing warheads designed to generate intense, area-of-effect explosive destruction that could tear apart light tanks and other minimally-armored vehicles. They were built to kill armor, provide close-air support to infantry, and to penetrate armored structures. However, when the need arose, the 'Hawks ground-strike munitions could easily be changed out for more . . . _expressive_, carnage.

That was why Talons One and Two carried the conventional thousand-pound ground-strike munitions, while the other four Firehawks were each loaded with six CBU-1007 "Jericho" munitions. The thousand-pound cluster bombs were capable of each dropping twenty-five precision guided bomblets on targets far below, with each bomblet outfitted with its own internal sensors to track moving targets and correct their fall.

Norman selected and designated his targets, and then depressed the thumb trigger. Immediately, the two thousand-pound ground-strike missiles leapt away. In the minute leading up to the missiles' release, Gabriel sent and received exact confirmation of the bombs' targets with the EVA at Centaur Actual, uploaded the coordinates, and programmed the missiles with their targets. The bombs locked onto the GPS coordinates of their targets and fell away, before the missiles fired their own rocket engines and screamed toward the targets. Once the missiles were away, no amount of electronic interference could stop them, for the simple reason that once they were away, they needed no electronic input to correct their aim.

Talons One and Two peeled away, deploying flares even as they picked up missile launches below. They dropped low over the city, the flares catching the missiles and diverting them. Moments later, four thousand-pound bombs hit four separate stationary targets, blowing the control centers for the anti-air batteries into raining debris and vaporized flesh.

"You're clear, ladies," Norman said. "Blow 'em to hell."

Then, the remaining four Talons and the CBU-1007s went to work.

* * *

Corporal Colt kept his laser centered on the back of an Avatar all the way through the bombardment, and found himself watching with fascination as the Firehawks screamed overhead, deploying cluster munitions.

The explosives rained down, and halfway through their fall, the twenty-four plummeting cluster bombs came apart, each deploying twenty-five self-propelled ground-strike munitions. Each bomb had been pre-programmed by a Gabriel using data provided by the EVA wielded by Commander Karrde, using laser targeting telemetry supplied by the individual Caprica teams. It was an example of networked, coordinated warfare at its finest.

Each bomb found a target, and accelerated toward the Nod soldiers even as the militia below looked up at the screaming sonic passage of the Firehawks. The smarter or more experienced ones were already yelling for cover, and diving behind whatever safety they could find.

Six hundred individually-guided cluster munitions detonated a heartbeat later. Half of the bombs were loaded with high-explosive warheads, the complex devices within each detonating with the force of two tons of TNT. The other half of the munitions were loaded with white phosphorous.

It was like God took a bucket of hell, pissed in it, and then poured it on the men below.

At least, that was Colt thought, as he saw sheets of silvery fire rain down upon the Nod troops, while the ground rippled with a staccato of immense, earth-shivering explosions. The Firehawks's payloads scattered and spread among the Nod defenders, tearing them apart and setting whatever else was still alive ablaze. White and gray smoke arose from whatever was being burned through by the phosphorous, and Colt knew that if anyone was alive through the mass of explosions, the horrific, burning chemical would leave them wishing they were dead. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for the Nod troops still inside their vehicles when the explosions tore them open and the phosphorous found them.

One of the Avatars shuddered through the bombardment, its jet-black skin glowing as phosphorous coated its armor. Bombs poured down upon and exploded against its exterior, and through the hellstorm, its red optics shone – until a submunition punched clean through and blew it apart. The Avatar took two more shuddering steps, its front end ablaze, and finally spun around into a drunken tumble that sent tremors through the floor at Colt's feet.

"Fuckin' A, man," hissed the other recon trooper who'd been accompanying him. Colt just shook his head, slipped back down behind the wall, and took off his rebreather. He dug out a cigarette, sighed, and lit up.

To the south, he heard the rumble and detonations of an oncoming armor charge, and settled in to wait. The IR beacon was already set on the rooftop so they wouldn't blast his position. He closed his eyes, and waited for the noise to stop.

Goddamn, he was tired of this war already.

* * *

Karrde settled into the command couch of the Mammoth Tank leading the main column's assault. He knew he would have been safer commanding from the rear, but that wasn't the point. Instead, he sorted out the advancing armored charge, while the tank's commander, a heavyset Master Sergeant named Lyons, stood below in the middle of the knot of chairs and instruments that made up the Mammoth's crew section. A Predator Tank would have been a tight, cramped fit, but the sheer, immense _size_ of the Mammoth allowed it more room to move around in.

The Mammoth went by the affectionate name _You, There._ When Karrde had asked where the name came from, Master Sergeant Lyons had grinned and gestured to the downwards-pointing caution arrows painted over the tread guards.

It was still hot, and sweat filled the air with a musky scent. Noise pounded from every direction: engines, autoloaders, and electronics. The titanic engine block below – bigger than an entire Predator MBT – powered a building-sized monster with twin cannons longer than most fighter planes, each of which was so huge it had its own smaller power generator. The autoloaders were clicking as Lyons barked orders, and Karrde heard the electrical humming of immense, rotating gears, turning the mighty turret at a stately pace.

"Scorpion, one seven point eight left, one point three up, one-five nine meters," Lyons called.

"Clear target," the gunners both replied.

"Commander," Lyons barked. "Brace." Karrde had just started to do so when she barked another order. "One, fire!"

The world became noise for an instant, mixed with force and vibration, and Karrde shook his head, hearing the distant clatter of a working autoloader.

"Get ready, sir," Lyons called, smiling back at him. "Gonna be a lot of that." He fumbled around and recovered the ear plugs in one of his pouches, and slid them into his ears.

The world thundered and shook again a moment later, and the engines' throaty cries grew deeper and louder. It sounded like a vast mechanical beast's hungry snarls, but amplified and deepened many times over, shaking up into his bones. The Mammoth shook again, but without the cannon firing. The tank had just taken a direct hit and shrugged it off.

"Two, fire!" he heard, and _You, There_ roared its war cry again, breaking the air around it, shattering a hundred windows, and blowing another Nod enemy to hell.

* * *

They advanced, a rolling tide of exploding tank shells and grinding treads. There was violence and noise and force and fire leading the way as they pounded through Nod positions. The lightly-armed militia engaged with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns, which deflected off the armor of the heavy tanks like brisk rainfall. The Mammoths' response, and the roar of the supporting Predators, crushed the facades of buildings the infantry were hiding behind and cast aside the feeble barricades they had constructed. The outer perimeter of the Nod defenses, intended to slow the charge and give advance warning that the assault was inbound, were extinguished with casual ease.

Brother-Captain Alvarez knew his position had been precarious, and he understood the violence of a full armor charge all too well. With his primary troops engaged to the west with the unexpected raiding force of mixed troops and vehicles, and with his main defensive point wiped out in a GDI airstrike, he realized that the time to retreat was at hand.

However, they still had more than a hundred wounded who hadn't yet been moved, and he knew that the defenses wouldn't hold long enough to get them all out.

He stood on the White House lawn, issuing orders and listening as bullets whizzed overhead, the irregulars within line of sight of the White House and slowly advancing. Whoever was commanding them was either insane, brilliant, or both, and the main armored advance was closing to the south at a steady and implacable pace.

He had maybe two hundred combat-capable troops on hand, and he would need most of those men to fight a viable delaying retreat. They didn't have time to load the wounded up and escape at the same time.

Stand and fight and sacrifice two hundred troops and maybe evacuate a few dozen of the critically wounded before they were overrun, or abandon them to GDI's mercies?

Brotherhood doctrine was very clear on the procedure in that case, but while he was aware of it and understood the blunt necessity, Brother-Captain Alvarez found it distasteful.

"Begin retreat," Alvarez finally ordered on the Damocles command channel. "All platoon commanders, begin staggered retreat north and west."

As soon as he issued the order, Alvarez started for the medical tent. He passed by the medics and priests caring for the wounded, who moved aside deferentially.

"We are beginning a general retreat," the Black Hand ordered. "Secure your supplies and drones and get to the vehicles." One of the medics was about to speak, but the Brother-Captain cut him off with a raised hand. "Leave the wounded that cannot move under their own power. We are withdrawing now."

The chief medic paused and nodded, understanding. Within moments, the medics were filing out of the room, while the chief medic was collecting his gear.

"Do you wish for me to handle it, Brother-Captain?" the man asked, but Alvarez shook his head, and drew his laser pistol, before moving to the war containing the unmovable injured.

He had issued the order, and he would carry it out. None of the Brotherhood would be left here for GDI to torture.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, the roar of battle and charge had begun to fade away, and Commander Karrde emerged from _You, There_ into the open air. The Mammoth was parked outside the White House, which was ringed with infantry and tanks, with the majority of the armor pushing north to chase the Nod troops as they retreated. However, the troops of Task Force Centaur were not the first GDI troops to have arrived.

A pair of battered Predator tanks were parked on the lawn, beside a damaged-looking APC, along with two Nod buggies, which were manned by troops in GDI combat uniforms. As soon as Karrde clambered out of the tank, he was greeted by two of the irregulars, who turned out the members of Zone Security, judging by the marking on their shoulderpads.

"Commander?" one of the troopers said. "Please come with me, sir."

"Whose outfit is this?" Karrde asked, pulling the earplugs out as he walked.

"We don't have a name, sir," the trooper replied, moving at a brisk pace. A squad of regular riflemen moved up behind them as they moved toward the front doors of the White House. They passed the detritus of a quickly-abandoned Nod camp, including a medical tent.

"Did you secure prisoners?" Karrde asked, to which the trooper shook his head. The Commander glanced into the tent as he passed, and nodded, understanding. Nod wasn't going to leave their wounded to be captured. He continued after the soldiers.

"What do you mean, you don't have a name?" he asked. "What was your original unit?"

"Zone Security, Sector Five-Seven-Two-Alpha," the trooper replied. "Pulled back when the main assault hit, and regrouped with the colonel. He put us together from a bunch of different units that got cut off inside the city."

"Who is your colonel?" Karrde asked, but the trooper simply opened the front door into the White House. Confused, Karrde stepped inside the room, moving around piles of broken glass, and came to a stop as a burly, graying man with a cybernetic arm walked toward him, clad in non-standard fatigues. An assault rifle dangled from a strap around his neck, and a satisfied grin was on his face.

"Commander Karrde?" he asked, and he nodded. To the commander's surprise, the man snapped a quick, walking salute as he approached, and then held out his flesh-and-blood hand.

"Colonel Nick Parker," Havoc said, and Karrde took his hand in his own. "About time you guys got here, sir, and it's damn good to see you."

* * *

_**InOps Archives - Classified: Eyes Only - InOps Intelligence Report: Black Hand – Abstract**_

_InOps has observed several distinct degrees of separation in Nod forces that have developed between the Second and Third Tiberium Wars. While Nod has always been a fairly fractured force – see previous reports on internal organization and factional loyalties – the lower ranks are remarkably diffuse and individual. This is most apparent in the form of the Black Hand subsection of the Brotherhood._

_The Black Hand has been a part of the Brotherhood's military for as long as the organization has existed. It is currently unknown precisely what role the organization played in earlier times, but during the First Tiberium War, the Black Hand was an elite force of fanatically loyal combat troops who formed their own distinct division within the Brotherhood's armed forces. They were unique in that Black Hand officers had authority over conventional Nod military forces, and were able to assume control over Nod military so long as they had authorization to do so from either Kane or General Gideon Raveshaw. By the Second Tiberium War, the Black Hand's political power had grown to allow them to serve as a separate armed force distinct from the main Nod military._

_After the Second Tiberium War, InOps worked to separate the Black Hand from the main Nod military, convincing a charismatic Black Hand confessor named Marcion - via proxy – to denounce Kane and break away. While this was successful, Marcion eventually recanted and rejoined the Brotherhood, and the Black Hand has since rejoined Nod._

_In the modern Brotherhood, the Black Hand serve as both a political and social force, with Hands serving as both soldiers and priests. Black Hand agents and representatives have been observed at multiple levels and in multiple roles in Brotherhood society, serving as advisors, religious leaders, and police. Black Hand elements have been noted to assist in civil service projects in Nod-controlled Yellow Zones, and have often been used as enforcers and even security within these zones. It has been noted that, invariably, once Black Hand elements arrive to handle a civil security matter, the issue is quickly dealt with._

_Currently, the Black Hand serves as an army-within-and-army in Nod. Black Hand elements are embedded within nearly every Nod military force observed, but also appear to be separate at the same time. Other Nod forces have been observed following the orders of Black Hand officers, including officers such as majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels following commands from Black Hand officers as low as captains. Whether this is due to respect, religious reasons, or fear is still speculated upon. _

_

* * *

_

_-_

_

* * *

_

_**Author's Notes**_: Well, that took too damn long. I blame Prototype.

The "thousand-ton" bomb typo has been corrected. As much as a thousand tons of explosives appeals to my sense of overkill, even GDI can't cram that much dakka on those itty-bitty Firehawks.

Until next chapter . . . .


	19. Chapter XVIII: Talking Heads

_**Chapter Eighteen: Talking Heads**_

_They built Shepard Stadium about 2011 for sports shows. They upgraded it in 2019 as a makeshift shelter in case of ion storms. Capacity was about forty thousand people. Three weeks into TW3, it was filled with three hundred thousand._

_They didn't mind. None of them. They were all in black bags._

_-Anonymous GDI medical worker_

* * *

_Whump. Whump. Whump._

He woke up to the rumble of artillery not three hundred meters away. He grumbled, swiping a hand over his eyes, and sat up. He heard grumbles beside him from other soldiers who were awakened by the artillery firing, and he checked the clock beside his bedroll.

It was broken, of course.

Corporal Mitchell Colt clambered to his feet, dust falling from the ceiling overhead as the artillery thudded close by. Of course, three hundred meters wasn't close in the infantryman's mindset, but when it came to artillery – particularly the Juggernauts – it was practically at their feet.

His unit – what was left of it – was billeted in some apartments that had been evacuated during the fighting. There were only a smattering of civilians still in the area; most had moved east in the fighting, though Nod had apparently allowed civilians to flee westward. At least, that was what was being rumored among the enlisted ranks, though official reports didn't speak of it, except to warn that civilians in Nod-controlled territories were to be "rescued" as quickly as possible, lest Nod try to work its propaganda magic on them.

He picked up his rifle and checked it quickly, removing the magazine and clearing the chamber, before reloading, slinging the weapon and standing. He was only clad in his fatigues, as his unit was stationed at the rear, ostensibly catching needed rest after this week's brutal combat.

Of course, he understood the real reason. His battalion had been mauled, and they were being checked for psychological casualties among the survivors while trying to figure out how to reconstitute a unit that had suffered more than fifty percent losses. Until then, they were on garrison duty, which meant handling military police work and patrols of their assigned sector to enforce martial law. Easy work, especially considering most of the civilians had been evacuated and those that remained were not in any mood to cause trouble with thousands of GDI soldiers on the streets.

He emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, fished out an MRE, and hauled himself up onto the roof of the apartment. He passed room stained with blood, walls pockmarked with bullet holes. One apartment was holed by a missile detonation – probably a shoulder-fired one, though he couldn't tell if it was a RPG-42 or a FGM-90 that did the damage. One particularly daring soldier was lying on a fold-out lounger inside the blown out room, dead asleep in the open air.

He moved upstairs, passing a pile of spent brass casings below a section of wall chewed up by bullets. A few meters up the stairwell, toward the top, were the signs of a smart claymore detonation: shredded plaster and wood marked by the dark burns of white phosphorous. The air smelled faintly of burnt flesh, and a few dark rags and stains marked where the claymore's victims had been scattered by the detonation.

The air on the rooftop was clear and hot. He looked across the city, seeing pillars of smoke emerging from ruined buildings, along with the diesel fuels of thousands of military vehicles on deployment. A week after the war had begun, and they were still mobilizing entire armored divisions. He'd heard rumors they were even pulling the old Titans and Mammoth IIs out of storage.

The air shuddered, and the ground shook as he walked across the gravel rooftop, rocks crunching under his boots. A quartet of troops from A Company were on the roof pulling four-point security, and a few more were sprawled out on bedrolls or chairs, watching the skyline of the city, pointing at buildings and chatting about how they thought the war was progressing. They gave nods and waves to Colt as he passed, and he returned them.

The edge of the rooftop looked over a city street still littered with cars crushed under a tank assault that had rolled through six days ago. The engineers had considered clearing the road but had instead simply waved their hands at the prospect and moved onto to roads that were more essential. Of course, the terrain made it difficult to approach the complex from that side, making it easily defensible.

The air shook again, and the rocks at his feet rumbled. Twenty-four detonations rumbled across the cityscape in a series three-shot bursts, and he could see flashes of blasting artillery emplacements a third of a kilometer away. A company of Juggernauts were visible across a series of low-rise apartments. The immense war machines loomed over the residential blocks, and though they looked awkward with their backward-bent chicken-like legs, the three immense barrels of their artillery cannons were more than enough to wipe the smirk off anyone who would make a joke about the design.

They thundered again, and each barrage sent a volley of firepower into Nod positions nearly forty-five kilometers distant. Colt stood there, watching the artillery rumble and thunder for a long while, never letting up though an hour passed. It was calm, serene, almost detached and peaceful.

That was a lie, of course, for he knew that wherever those cannons were pointed, men were dying. Wherever the shells landed, it was hell.

He knew what it was like to be subjected to an artillery barrage, to fight an enemy that you couldn't see. A week ago he'd never fired his weapon in anger, but today he was a weary veteran, and this war would probably take years more to finish. He was already bone-tired.

But for now, Colt stayed where he was, listening to the roar of the guns, and accepted the peace he had.

* * *

The Brotherhood had a lot of different means of getting personnel around the globe. Back in the First Tiberium War, they had used public transportation, as the global order hadn't collapsed to the point that international flights were completely grounded. By the Second Tiberium War, a lot of transportation had occurred underground, via an extensive network of tunnels and subterranean vehicles. The spread of Tiberium, particularly underground into the Earth's crust, had made that prospect difficult by modern times, but Nod had still developed secured flight lanes and paths for their aircraft. GDI had unofficially respected these flight paths, only occasionally launching air patrols and bringing down the odd Nod aircraft.

These days, with GDI's air power thoroughly tied up engaging Nod assets across the globe, those flight lanes were oddly _more_ secure than they were during peacetime. That didn't change the fact that the plane currently crossing the Atlantic Ocean was flying with four Venom craft as escort. The plane itself looked like a mixture of civilian passenger jet and a transport aircraft, painted in Nod colors. The Commander riding on it had remarked how foolish it was to paint the plane such obvious colors, to which the pilots had replied that if GDI wanted to shoot it down, they'd launch missiles from well past the horizon and thus visual ranges.

For an infantry Commander, Rawne always found the distance at which artillery could kill him to be a bit unsettling. Probably why he preferred urban combat.

He sat in the front section of the plane, strapped into a comfortable seat, head leaning back and with his eyes closed. He could hear the rumble of the jet's engines as it carried them over the ocean. The rear of the plane was laden with forty Nod special forces troops, partially there because they were being transported back to Temple Prime for one important mission or another. The other reason they were there was to make sure Rawne got to Temple Prime, too.

He heard a grunt from across him, and opened his eyes. The plane was lit with the same dim, pale red light as most Nod craft and facilities, and seated across from him was Ajay. The intelligence officer was watching him, a measured look on his face, as if he were evaluating his Commander.

"You haven't been talking much, sir," Ajay finally said, his voice cutting across and through the quiet rumble of the engine. Rawne glanced up at him, and shrugged.

"Haven't felt like talking," he replied. Ajay sat there for a moment, waiting for the Commander to elaborate, but Rawne was silent. That made the intelligence officer frown and lean back in his seat. The airplane rumbled and shook a bit as it passed through turbulence.

"What's the matter?" Rawne suddenly asked, raising an eyebrow. "You look like you want to say something."

"We took a hit back there, boss," Ajay said, shrugging.

"Yes, I know," Rawne replied quietly.

"This is war, Commander," Ajay said. "You win some, you lose some, understand?"

"Kane gave me a task," Rawne growled. "I was to lead his army and conquer. Instead I led us headlong into defeat."

"And you think that makes you special?" Ajay asked, and that drew a glare from Rawne. "Special in the failing sense? This is Nod, Commander. Unless you forgot, the whole reason we're fighting the Third Tiberium War is because we lost the First and the Second ones."

"And now we're losing the Third one, too." Rawne grumbled.

"Now ain't that a defeatist sense," Ajay said, smiling. "We're a week into the war, Commander. Kane's still got plenty of plays he ain't dealt out yet. Don't matter how many times you fall down Commander. What matters is how many times you get back up."

Rawne frowned, considering those words, and retreated back into the rumble of the working engines.

* * *

Smoke was still rising up from the ruined buildings behind them as they walked through the wreckage. They had to step carefully; more than once Emily had slipped on an errant body part. Even a week after the battle, there were still corpses that needed recovering.

That fact should really have shocked her more than it did, but for Emily Wong, seeing so much carnage in so short a period of time had inured her to just how brutal it all really was. Worrying about slipping on someone's shrapnel-riddled liver was barely in the top ten list of her concerns right now.

"As you can see," she was saying, gesturing to the GDI soldiers moving down the street in front of her, sweeping the ruins, "Nod presence is still a significant concern for GDI forces. In an off the record comment from one official, GDI officers believe that at least twelve percent of standing manpower has been directed exclusively to policing Blue Zones for Nod infiltration."

She moved around a large pile of rubble in the middle of the street, which a team of engineers assisted by airborne drones and a couple of dozers were trying to clear. Following behind her was her cameraman, Tim, filming with his steady shoulder camera, and festooned with recording gear of all types.

"And even with the massive pacification and security efforts, gunfire can still be heard regularly throughout the city. Nod infiltration units seem to consist of a wide range of individuals, from simply lone soldiers separated from their units to dedicated infiltration cells planted by the advancing army." She paused at an intersection and a series of trucks laden with troops, supplies, and a half-dozen Predator tanks rumbled past.

"Though there has not been official word, there is strong speculation among GDI's soldiers and officer corps that Nod may have deliberately planted these elements in preparation for a prolonged war. To date, GDI officials have not given any word on how extensive the Nod infiltration may have been, but policing efforts still continue."

She gestured to the same squad of soldiers that had been seen earlier.

"These troops are members of the 31st Infantry Division, and have been clearing this city block for more than an hour, combing through every room multiple times for not only human infiltration, but also listening and observation devices. There is a truck back at their battalion headquarters loaded with more than three hundred such devices recovered from the field, ranging from simple recoding equipment to highly complex sensor equipment capable of monitoring data over a distance of more than five kilometers. There is little doubt in anyone's mind that though Nod's regular forces are no longer in this area, Nod's influence is still present and represents a massive security threat."

"And cut," Tim said, and Emily sighed.

"Okay, let's head over to the White House," she said. She had an interview with a certain hero scheduled for the next few hours. If only she didn't have to walk everywhere; GDI forces had commandeered all transportation.

_At least they haven't started conscription_, she thought darkly, and then corrected herself. _Yet._

* * *

Temple Prime was still as immense and monolithic as he remembered, thrusting into the sky like a serrated fist of black and red metal, framed by the Tiberium plateau looming behind it. Security, as he recalled, was just as stringent, with an entire regiment of the Black Hand serving as protectors. Passing through outer perimeter security inside the Temple itself made reaching Sarajevo and entering the Nod city around the Temple seem like an easy prospect.

Rawne was moving along the upper levels of the Temple, peering out the immense stained glass windows overlooking the city below. The Nod buildings were a myriad of black metal and stained glass windows, like a fields of dark flowers interspersed with the gleaming green of Tiberium. Beyond the vast walls, he saw the sandy reaches of the Sarajevo badlands, stretching away and pockmarked with abandoned homes and cities.

Behind him, Rawne knew, were a half-dozen soldiers, disciples of the Black Hand who were tasked with protecting him – and more importantly, keeping him inside the Temple. After all, when Kane invited a leader who had failed to a personal audience, it was entirely understandable – though just as unacceptable – if such a commander was hesitant to show up. The specters of Seth and General Hassan were not so easily shaken, especially in this sacred land.

He paused in the middle of his walk, and looked over his shoulder. The soldiers had paused along with him and a couple peered back impassively, while the rest watched the long, russet-lit corridor for threat. Rawne slowly turned a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he was not alone with his bodyguard.

"Peace through power, Brother," came a call from down the hallway, and Rawne looked up from the window. Brother–Captain Alvarez, clad in his sculpted black armor and ceremonial red cape, was striding down the hallway toward him.

"One Vision, One Purpose," Rawne replied, smiling slightly, and shook his friend's offered hand. Jose's armor was newly repaired, but he could still see the wounds his friend's armor had taken in the battles in Washington. More importantly, he could see the darkness in his friend's features.

Rawne had read the reports. They had been sanitized as such things were by the euphemisms of the military, but one could only couch the words "I executed my own wounded" in so much cold terminology.

"It is good to see you well, Brother," the Hand offered, and they started walking down the passage. Jose nodded to the disciples, who drifted away.

"You, also," Rawne said. "I was worried you wouldn't make it out of there."

"Your orders were apt," Jose said. "I understand why you gave them."

"Don't hide it, Jose," Rawne said, shaking his head. "How many?"

"More than a hundred," he said, darkly. "I had to change the magazine for my pistol twice."

They walked in silence for a long while.

"Do you know why Kane has summoned us here?" Rawne asked.

"He summoned _you_," Jose said. "I was brought here for evaluation."

"Psychological?" Rawne asked, and Jose nodded. The Commander winced in sympathy, but he understood. Anyone who had taken such brutal steps would need to be checked, at the very least to ensure his faith was still strong afterwards.

They passed through a series of antechambers, each featuring security checkpoints, and finally they entered the central chamber of Temple Prime's top floor, where Kane oversaw Brotherhood of Nod's war of liberation. Jose lingered at the door as Rawne stepped into the chamber. There was no low-hanging mist in this room, though immense stained-glass windows loomed up on the far end of the chamber, turning all the incoming light into a rosy, pinkish hue.

A flare of pain ran up Rawne's leg and he stumbled for a moment, before righting himself and continuing to walk. He did his best to make it look dignified, and tried to avoid the embarrassment. Even in Temple Prime, he had to watch his step.

"Ah, Commander!" Kane called, seated at a black desk in the middle of the chamber. Beside him stood a tall woman with chin-length blonde hair, wearing a conservative black suit that . . . fit her well. It only took him a second to attach the curves and the lovely features on her face to a particular name.

General Killian Qatar. Kane's second in command.

He had just stumbled like a fool in front of the two most powerful people in the Brotherhood of Nod.

Thankfully, Kane was smiling, and it wasn't the shark-like grin of a man preparing to put a laser beam through someone's vitals. It was an amused grin, no doubt due to Rawne's chance misfortune with furniture.

"I was just saying how pleased I was with your progress," Kane added as Rawne approached the desk, and he glanced up to the woman beside him. "General Qatar tells me you two have never met, but I'm sure you've heard of her deeds."

Of course he had, Rawne thought. One didn't reach Kane's right hand without being smart, dangerous, and ruthless. Killian Qatar was a deadly woman who had earned her way to the top through blood and steel. Most of Brazil and Africa was under Nod's governance due to her actions.

"Besides yourself," Kane continued, "She is the greatest military asset we have. The _Philadelphia_ strike was her idea."

"My idea, I guess," Qatar replied, and Rawne found her voice had a pleasant, smooth texture to it. "But it was your vision that made it possible." As she spoke, she reached down and put a hand on Kane's shoulder.

Very, very few people could do that and live.

Deep down, Rawne envied Kane, if only for the fact that he was surrounded by so many leggy blondes who felt the need to fondle him.

"And our Commander who made it happen," Kane said, gesturing to Rawne. He leaned forward, directing all of his attention at the officer before his desk.

"Now, my son, you must help me unveil phase two of this campaign," he said. Beside him, Rawne caught a flicker across Qatar's face, there and gone in a flash.

_Surprise._ Qatar hadn't expected to hear that from Kane.

So, the messiah was keeping things from his second? Interesting, important, smart, and practical. Just what he'd expect from Kane.

The Brotherhood's leader slowly stood, his smile fading into seriousness.

"I am going abroad now to oversee final preparations, but General Qatar will personally oversee your upcoming missions. Afford her the same reverence you would offer me."

"Of course," Rawne replied, bowing slightly, and Kane nodded, before turning to depart. The air seemed to lighten, but also darken at the same time, as he was left alone with Qatar.

As alluring as she might be, the Commander knew she wasn't to be trifled with.

"Kane is correct. We have made good progress," Qatar said, and slid into the chair Kane had previously occupied. "Better than I thought possible at this stage."

"Good progress," Rawne echoed. "We've lost momentum in DC and GDI is launching a counterassault. I don't name that 'good progress'."

"On the overall field of battle, we have the advantage," Qatar replied. "More than half of GDI's territory is currently occupied by Nod forces, and we are pressing them hard. Admittedly, I didn't expect our forces would be prepared for this kind of sustained operation, but Kane differs, and we follow his judgment."

She settled back in her chair.

"But we have awoken a sleeping giant," she added. "GDI will retaliate with a force that will test our resolve."

"Yes, and I've seen it firsthand," he responded, to which she nodded.

"Which gives you an advantage," she replied. "You are chosen by Kane, and it will be up to you to show the world we will not back down."

"What do you need from me?" he asked, and she glanced down at the displays on her desk.

"For now, Kane has ordered that you rest," she said. "Your trials thus far have been taxing, and Kane has seen fit that you see some respite. A billet has been provided for you at one of the Hands of Nod in the city."

"I see," Rawne said, nodding. He had to agree that he was weary, but he wanted to get back into the fray, commanding armies and putting his skills to work against GDI. Killian Qatar glanced over his features, and he could feel her gaze reading him like an open book.

"Rest assured, Commander," Qatar said, "your skills will be tested to their fullest in the coming weeks. But for now, you must get what rest you can. Enjoy Sarajevo."

He nodded, and as he left the room, that feeling came back, a sensation that something else was here, in the room with him that he couldn't see.

* * *

General Jack Granger's office was not the plush environment that many officers enjoyed. In fact, it was remarkably Spartan and straightforward in design. That was partially because he conducted most of his business from a desk in the command center, and also because he didn't have much of a use for decoration or comfort, particularly when his subordinates did not enjoy the same. He sat in the same model of chair as the lowliest lieutenant in his headquarters, used the same cheap plastic pens and the same quirky, unreliable laptops, mostly on principle.

That room had seen a lot more work as of recently, as Granger had commuted back and forth between his office and his command center almost exclusively in the last week. He'd had his meals delivered directly from the canteen on-base and eaten at his desk, and he'd slept in his uncomfortable chair and eliminated at the enlisted troops' bathrooms.

The war had demanded his full-time attention, and with Southern Cross reduced to rubble and the Philadelphia destroyed in a nuclear fireball, he was the ranking GDI officer in command of the entire global war effort.

He'd spent most of that time talking to various heads on video screens, as he'd held daily conferences with his lower-ranking generals scattered across the planet at each particular Blue Zone, directing their efforts. The news media, particularly W3N, were making it out as if the to-the-bone defense of the Pentagon had "inspired" victories across the globe, and while it had boosted the morale of GDI's troops that they'd driven the enemy back, the real advantage of that battle had come from the coordination and the direction offered by the Pentagon.

As long as his commanders knew who to report to, Granger understood, they knew what to do. The human animal required direction at some level, even if it came from inside, though most sought such direction from others. The majority of GDI military commanders these days were at least partially political animals, which meant they looked to someone else for direction and command. They were competent so long as they had orders and a box to work inside of.

Granger settled tiredly into his chair and tore the wrapping off the plastic plate that had his dinner. As he started to eat and run over his papers, he turned on the television set into his office wall, if only for some background noise. He tended to watch the news nowadays, if only to see what was being reported by the civilian agencies. A commander was foolish if he didn't use all intelligence sources available to him, and civilian news agencies had a tendency to ferret out useful information.

Instead of getting another dispatch from another reporter in the field, though, he was inflicted with the image of William Frank, the most vapid and brainless personality on W3N. He considered just turning off the television again, but paused when he realized that Frank was conducting a face-to-face interview.

With Redmond Boyle.

_That_ got Granger's attention.

"_It's heartening to see that GDI has really come out swinging," _Frank said, sitting across a small, polished wooden table, a set of fine crystal glasses and pitchers of water before him. The backdrop of the room was pitch black, giving the two men all the focus of the scene – typical of W3N.

"_Yes, it's very heartening," _replied the man sitting across the table_. "We're putting up one hell of a fight out there."_ Redmond Boyle seemed to exude an air of calm, collected sanity, which Granger knew was a carefully crafted and very necessary persona at this point in time. He wore his favored cut of a fine, pressed, long coat with a silken, outward folding collar that reminded Granger of a cobra's skin folds rising up before an attack.

The civilian populace was a riot of emotion. Confusion, shock, and fear were most prevalent, along with anxiety as the uncertainty of their future after the impossibility of another Nod assault. As inured to war as mankind in general had become, most of the GDI civilian populace had begun to settle down into a peaceful lifestyle – one that had been shattered by Nod's assault.

Mixed in with the anxiety and terror was anger, and calls for vengeance, both from the civilians and the military, which was making the conducting of an ordered, controlled war even more difficult than it already was. Granger appreciated Boyle's understanding of that fact, and his savvy projection of control in the chaos of the war was doing more to calm the population than any amount of martial law.

On their side was the press. Boyle knew how to spin the press, and the press knew how to lap it up.

"_But William, I disagree with your assessment that the outcome of this war is in doubt," _Boyle continued, the hint of a smile on his features._ "There is no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that GDI will prevail. We will have the will, the resources, and most importantly, the support of the people. The public wants payback. An eye for an eye, and that's exactly what we're going to give them."_

This made the weary Granger frown. He knew Boyle had been quietly but emphatically pushing for a full mobilization, which Granger only agreed with, but where the two differed was in the extension of their forces. Boyle was adamant that the troops be not simply mobilized and armed, with the Mammoths and the Orcas and the Juggernauts pulled out of storage and deployed on the front. He wanted the GDI forces ready to launch a complete counterassault, and quickly.

Granger agreed that GDI needed to attack as well, but he wanted his forces to mobilize first to secure their own territory, and then work outward in a concerted counterassault, occupying and clearing each continent at a time, and he damn well didn't want to launch any full-scale assaults until the Ion Cannon network was back online. Boyle, on the other hand, wanted the counterassaults to begin _now_.

And he was on TV, basically telling the whole world that GDI was going to sally forth and slay the big bad Nod dragon.

Great.

_"The question then seems to be," _William Frank replied, _"can you deliver on this promise? Several conflict analysts are citing your lack of wartime experience as a cause for concern."_

That was also one of Granger's concerns. How deeply was Boyle going to interfere in the operations of this war? Granger could give him an aggressive counterassault, as bloody as it would be, but he couldn't do that with the Director shoving his cane into every detail of the conflict. Boyle had enough on his plate managing the civilian side of this war.

_"I believe in my generals and commanders,"_ Boyle replied, leaning back in his chair and commenting casually, as if this was a simple matter of no concern. As if it was a simple, undeniable fact, like Tiberium being green. _"They are the best of the best. And I believe they deserve not only the trust of myself and my administration, but also the trust of the people."_ He leaned forward, gesturing with his left hand. _"Because that is who we are fighting for. Who we are fighting to protect. Undermining that critical bond between a people and their protectors is, I believe, a mistake."_

_"In that case, Director, I'll have to ask, what is your plan for this war?" _ Frank asked. Boyle smiled again, leaning back in his chair.

_"Obviously, I can't give away details, but I will say that I am allowing my generals to prosecute this war as they see fit."_

_"But there is civilian oversight," _Frank said quickly. _"GDI's charter is-"_

_"Forgive me," _Boyle said quickly, _"but I am well aware of what GDI's charter demands, and I assure you that I am in completely control over this war. However, William, as you so helpfully pointed out, my lack of wartime experience is indeed something I have taken into consideration, and I am allowing those who understand war to conduct it."_

He leaned forward again.

_"There is a Latin proverb I've always been fond of.'To blunder twice is not allowed in war.' We made a mistake long before this war began by concentrating our Ion Cannon control systems on the surface. That was a mistake made by civilian government. By Directors more concerned with funding than military experts concerned with defense. If you'll check the records of that legislation, you'll see I voted against terrestrial Ion Cannon controls precisely because of the use of Tiberium in our manufacturing. If we'd been more focused on harvesting that resource instead of destroying it, we could have easily built an orbital control center, and this war would have been avoided. I will not allow that blunder to happen again, William."_

That got Granger concerned. Not the part where Boyle spoke of letting the military control matters – though that wasn't necessarily a good thing, as the only-marginally-competent talking heads that were his lower-ranking generals proved, they needed good leadership - but Boyle's cavalier attitude toward Tiberium.

Granger's views were adamant: Tiberium was an abomination. It was the lifeblood of Nod and as long as they had it they were a threat. It not only gave them a massive industrial capacity - only boosted by their heavy presence in the Yellow and Red Zones - but it also gave them an ideological foundation that ensured Kane would always have followers. It was a cancer that was killing the planet.

And Boyle wanted to use that cancer. He wanted to turn his back on the core principles of GDI, and the need to wipe Tiberium from Earth before it did the same to humanity.

_"Okay, then, Director, thank you for that reassuring insight," _Frank said. _"Now, let's take some questions from our viewers . . . ."_

Granger leaned back in his chair, and ate quietly, watching the television. He had been right. Sometimes, the news did provide you with critical intelligence on your enemy . . . and on your allies, too. And sometimes, you couldn't tell which was which.

* * *

There were advantages to being a Commander. For example, one could, under the authority granted them, turn a landmark into a command center. At the moment Alexander Karrde's headquarters was in the White House, and the Oval Office was where his communications equipment was set up.

Right now, though, it was creeping into the evening, and after a week of operations, he was taking a few hours off-duty. It hadn't been by choice, but General Granger had taken one look at the Commander's haggard features during a video conference and ordered him to stand down for a bit and let his subordinates take over.

One of the staff rooms was unoccupied and had an open door leading outside, and Karrde was sitting there, listening to the distant rumble of cannon fire from a company of Juggernauts. The sky over where they were firing flashed with each steady triple-shot burst of destruction. Somewhere behind him, he could hear some of the troops watching the news on a television they'd hauled in from somewhere.

"There a story behind that?" came a voice, and Karrde looked up from his seat. Colonel (retired) Nick Parker stepped into the room, holding a couple bottles of beer. Karrde raised an eyebrow around his good eye, and the Colonel gestured to his own eyes while holding out the bottles.

"That bit of trouble in Rio, years back," Karrde replied, taking one of the offered beers. He glanced at the label. "Never liked Coors." He popped the top and took a long chug.

Colonel Parker's men were scattered around the White House, apparently nominally under his command, at least until Administration could figure out where they were supposed to go. No one had bothered telling the retired Colonel that he should stay retired; especially after all he'd apparently managed to do.

For now, Parker's irregular, rag-tag bunch were nominally part of Karrde's command, and the whole group were tasked with protecting the White House while the main advance rolled into Nod-occupied territory.

"From what I heard, I wouldn't call the Rio Uprising a 'bit of trouble'," Parker replied, sitting down in a chair beside the Commander. Karrde grunted.

"It wasn't," he replied quietly. A few moments' silence passed.

"You're not happy with winning like this," Parker mused, and Karrde nodded.

"Too many dead," he replied. "I got so many troops killed under my command."

"It happens," Parker said. "It's a shitty job." He took a long drink from the bottle, and settled back in his chair. Karrde could faintly hear the cybernetics working inside his body in the still air.

"You know about Dead Six," he said, after a few minutes of quiet. "Decommissioned it thirty years ago. I was part of it once, but I left them. They were good guys, and they were my friends, but . . . that _was_ why I left them."

"You didn't want to get them killed," Karrde said, and Havoc grunted.

"I work alone," he said. "Worked," he corrected. "I got a lot of guys killed in the First Tib War. And I . . . there were a lot of faces. And a lot of names." He frowned, and took another long drink. "I can't remember them all."

He was quiet for a heartbeat.

"After a while, I got too high up for them to just let me run around on my own, doing my own thing," he said. "The war ended, and I got saddled with special forces command. Then the Second Tib War rolled around, and a whole fresh round of faces came along that I saw, memorized, and then forgot as the war chewed them up. Now there's just . . . numbers."

A few more moments' silence passed. They could both hear William Frank's interview with Redmond Boyle in the next room, and grumbles and jeers from some of the soldiers.

"Being a leader isn't easy," Parker continued. "You get all these speeches asking 'Are you worthy' or 'know yourself to lead others' and that nonsense, but ultimately, it boils down to a simple question: can you live with condemning sons and daughters and fathers and mothers to their deaths?"

He took another long drink.

"We forge futures out of pain and grief, Commander. The computers and the communications officers and the EVAs and the displays only serve to isolate us so we can be inhuman. We're monsters, son. Cold, mechanical, rational monsters, and the only way we win is by being colder, more mechanical, and more rational than the next monster moving his little pieces on the screen. That's how war has been fought since Stalin rolled into the Allies a century ago. You point, you click, and they die. It's how it works."

"I don't believe that," Karrde whispered, and Havoc grunted.

"Kids," he whispered, and finished his drink. "Think on it. That's the kind of mind that got us where we are today." He rose to his feet, cybernetics hissing and whirring as he stood.

"Yeah," Karrde muttered. Three million dead in a week, half the planet uninhabitable, and a new world war that was tearing the last vestiges of the human species apart. That kind of thinking had gotten them real far.

He watched Havoc leave, and wondered whether the old commando honestly believed what he'd just been saying, or was condemning those whose ideas he'd voiced.

The night was still young, and he had half a bottle of beer to nurse. He let the darkness and the bitter drink stretch out for a long while, and considered all the faces he'd seen, and worried over how many were lost.

* * *

There was a transport waiting outside Temple Prime for him, but this time there was no bodyguard detail. Rawne snorted at their absence, understanding just why they had been there after all. He clambered into the transport, and the driver closed the door on the little wheeled vehicle. As he limbed inside, his feet bumped a cabinet under the car's rear seats. A quick glance at the cabinet showed it was a weapons locker, stocked with a pair of laser rifles.

He checked the billet he'd been given, the data stored on his personal wrist computer. A holographic display rose up before him as the driver got the vehicle moving. Apparently, he'd been given upper-level officer's quarters in a Hand of Nod. This particular barracks was a mostly-female one.

"Ooch, Killian," Rawne said. "You know how to bribe a man."

A few minutes passed, and Rawne reviewed the data he had been given, and started looking at what reports he was allowed to on the war. The Brotherhood was excellent at controlling information, and feeding its personnel the information they needed over the information they wanted. Being a Commander, he had access to quite a bit of otherwise restricted material. He logged onto the Brotherhood network using his access code and identification, which naturally required a retinal scan and fingerprint identification.

The transport ground to a sudden halt, lurching Rawne in his seat. He frowned, and reached forward, hammering the glass separating him from the driver.

"Hey!" he called. "Why did we stop?"

There was no response, and Rawne tried the intercom. Again, no response came, and that started to get him worried. He reached down under the seat and began unlocking the rifle cabinet hidden there.

_"Ah, Commander, that will not be necessary."_

Rawne froze as the voice, loud and deep and marked by a hefty British accent, filled the room, carrying an air of amusement. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to have a chat with you. Privately." The voice made Rawne frown again, and his brows furrowed in recognition.

" . . . . Tim Curry?" he asked, and a laugh came over the transport's intercom.

_"No, but I figured you would appreciate the voice I'm using,"_ the familiar accent replied.

"Who the hell are you and why are you hijacking my transport?" Rawne demanded, pulling the rifle out of the cabinet anyway. "And you'd damn well better not start singing _Sweet Transvestite_, either."

_"No, no, of course not,"_ the voice replied quickly, chuckling. _"I mean you no harm, but I wanted a venue where we could talk without eavesdropping."_

"You're using remote transmission," Rawne pointed out. "Anyone could be eavesdropping on you."

_"No, they won't,"_ the voice replied, with a tone of confidence and finality that made the Commander pause. He'd only heard Kane speak with such assuredness before.

"Okay then," Rawne said. "You haven't answered my first question. Who, or what, the hell are you?"

_"Who and what are actually very similar terms when describing me,"_ the voice replied. _"But I suppose to make this conversation work out better, I'll give you the same name that Kane bestowed on me._

_"For the purposes of this conversation, you may call me LEGION."_

_

* * *

_

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_It was either Tim Curry or Timothy Dalton.

So, this chapter, and the next one, are relatively slower, transitionary arcs to the chaos that we'll be seeing in Brazil and Egypt in the next act. More explosive fun! :D But until then, conversations and plotting.

Until next chapter . . . .


	20. Chapter XIX: Last Call

_**Chapter XIX: Last Call**_

_The worst part of any war is the waiting. Nothing happens for what feels like weeks or months, and then, all of a sudden, activity, violence, death, excitement, all that shit. Sometimes, your side gets to decide when it happens. Other times – the worst times – the enemy decides when it happens. And most of the time, you've got no control over your destiny. The leadership orders you to die, and you have to go fight and die._

_All you can do is wait, and hope that when the violence comes, you can kill efficiently enough that you live until the next round of terror._

_-Anonymous Nod soldier_

* * *

" . . . . I don't get it."

"_LEGION. Bible reference."_

Rawne frowned, and shook his head.

"Never read it," he replied.

"_I get bored, so I have," _the voice replied. _"Kane says it's symbolic and important, but I'm never certain whether he's serious or spinning nonsense to be mystifying." _There was a momentary pause. _"So, what shall we talk about?"_

"First off, what are you?" Rawne asked, starting to settle down, and not gripping the rifle so tightly.

"_From what I'm able to tell, I'm a strategic and tactical operations AI assigned to controlling security around Temple Prime,"_ LEGION explained. _"Sort of like an EVA, only I appear to actually have a superior degree of self-awareness."_

"From what you're able to tell," Rawne echoed, and the AI sighed audibly.

"_I have to admit that I do not know. For all I am aware of, this could be an elaborate simulation. My entire perception of reality is filtered electronic signals, after all. For all I know, you are not even real, but I have to assume you actually do exist. Of course, that begs the question of defining what is and is not real, which itself is up in the air. But I digress."_

"A lot."

"_Part of my puckish charm, Commander."_

"Uh-huh. Is this conversation going anywhere?"

"_Quite. I wanted to speak with a fellow veteran of the Rio Uprising," _LEGION said. There was a moment of silence as the AI let that sink in.

"Come again?" Rawne asked.

"_Such a brilliant wit you have, Commander," _LEGION replied. _"No wonder you did so well when it came to executing that one treacherous Nod officer. I have a recording of when you put a bullet in the back of his neck. You could have shot him in the head, but the neck shot gave him a few moments to realize how dead he was as he lay gasping and bleeding out, before finally suffering brain death. Very poignant look of terror on his face."_

"How did you know-"

"_I had feeds from your helmet camera," _LEGION explained. _"Clarification: I had video feeds from all your men, or at least those who had them."_

"You commanded the Insurrection," Rawne said, sitting back, realization hitting him.

"_You were the one who pulled it off on the ground," _LEGION replied. _"I simply coordinated the various insurgent units in the city."_

Rawne mulled over that for a few seconds. He knew the story of CABAL, and how General Slavik had been forced to unify Nod and join forces with GDI to defeat the mad AI. Rawne was understandably hesitant about accepting another AI that clearly had so strong a personality.

More importantly, he remembered the Rio Insurrection. He remembered how they'd fought, who had been killed, and how ruthlessly their commanders – _commander_, he corrected – had spent human lives. In the years afterward, he'd come to accept those losses, but all the same, he knew that he could have been among the burnt and twisted corpses left in the wake of that battle.

Whatever LEGION was, the affable British voice and cheery demeanor hid something that was brutal, ruthless, and inhuman.

Rawne found it rather unsettling to meet someone who was willing to treat him the same way he had treated his own troops. And he still didn't know why LEGION had called him to talk – or if there even was a reason, beyond the AI just wanting to amuse itself.

"_Now," _the AI cut in, _"here is an interesting fact. You are not the only veteran of the Rio Uprising who fought in Washington DC."_

The holographic projector built into the transport's floor suddenly lit up, and a line of men in gray fatigues – GDI troops, lined up for a photograph. It was marked as nearly twenty years ago – shortly after TW2, then.

Rawne opened his mouth to speak, but LEGION cut him off with a quick _"Tut!" _and the image zoomed in, focusing on one soldier in the line. There was nothing terribly remarkable about the man, save for a strong jawline and sharp blue eyes. The man's nametag read "Karrde."

Two more images popped up. The second one showed the same face, but badly bloodied, and the soldier in question carrying a wounded GDI trooper on his shoulder, smoke and fire framing them. Rawne recognized the remains of one of the GDI administration facilities he had attacked during the Uprising. One of Karrde's eyes was a bloody mess.

The last image showed the same man, with a date tag indicating two decades later. His eye was replaced by a cold, gleaming blue cybernetic one with a metallic mount around the outer edge. He was looking down at an arm-mounted computer, while talking to a couple of soldiers. They were standing outside the White House, and the corpses of slain Nod soldiers were scattered about.

Rawne sucked in a breath and checked the date again. It was only a day after he'd been forced to retreat.

"_A very, very small world, Commander," _LEGION remarked, clearly amused.

Rawne shook his head, leaning back in his chair. Whoever this Karrde man was, he had been at least partially responsible for Rawne's failure in Washington.

"What else do you know about this man?" Rawne asked, leaning forward. A sudden, burning need to know his enemy rose up. He had to learn about this GDI officer, all the better to defeat him if he met again.

Because deep down, something told Rawne they would.

* * *

The room was cold, as per its wont. The walls were a blank gray concrete, featureless and empty, and the table in the middle of the chamber was a bolted down, stainless steel piece of furniture with rounded edges. There was nothing sharp or angled in the room that an occupant could use to hurt him or herself, let alone others. One wall was dominated by a standard two-way mirror, and a single light shone down from an armored panel set high in the ceiling.

Today, the room had four occupants. There was a middle-aged, slightly graying Major in standard gray garrison uniform sitting on one side of the cold metal table. At the door stood two soldiers in full kit, minus any weapons, bulky and faceless and exuding authority and presence. The nametags attached to their armor identified them as Corporals Person and Ragland. The Major didn't have a nametag, but the two troopers assigned to guard him had come to name him "Douche."

The last man was a thin, haggard young fellow with dark hair and pitted features, wearing a simple thin gray jumpsuit. He was shackled to the chair on the other side of the cold, stainless table, and he stared at his own reflection in the metal, scowling and silent.

Major Douche looked up from the dossier he was reading over, which was as standard and featureless as everything else in the room. He reached inside the folder and drew out several pictures, setting them before the man.

"I know you've claimed that you can't read," the major said, splitting the silence with spoken words. "But I'm sure you can understand pictures." He slid them across to the prisoner, who glanced at them.

The first one showed a destroyed Nod Avatar, with a Predator tank rolling over its remains, GDI soldiers cheering around it. The next showed a group of GDI soldiers posing in front of a Nod banner that had been holed by gunfire. A third showed GDI soldiers and vehicles gathered outside the White House, with Nod bodies and destroyed vehicles visible. The fifth showed another Avatar, this one with an elderly but muscular man in fatigues and cybernetic parts festooning his body posing on top of it with a GDI flag in hand.

The prisoner looked up from the pictures, his expression still sullen and still defiant.

"You expect me to believe these lies?" spat the prisoner, and the Major smiled.

"I do," Douche replied. "Especially as you were present at the White House when we reclaimed it, and we know that picture there in front of the Avatar was taken just after your unit withdrew from the Pentagon. Some of your squadmates have been very talkative."

That affected the prisoner more than he'd be willing to admit, and the troopers saw a shift in the man's expression.

"You will not find my faith as wanting," the prisoner whispered. "And we know nothing useful. We are soldiers, not officers."

"That's for us to decide," the Major replied. "You know that Nod has lost this round. And you have to know GDI will not just let you go back to rejoin them. This war could last for weeks, maybe months. Worst comes to worst, it could last years, maybe decades. So, you and your friends are probably going to get nice and cozy with a prison camp, unless you cooperate. After all, space is at a premium in the Blue Zones, so it's going to be _very_ uncomfortable."

"You do not have space to hold the numbers you'll take," the prisoner sneered. "And you assume any prison can be worse than the Yellow Zone I came from. Why should I not believe you'll simply kill me if I don't talk?"

"For one, killing you because you don't talk is counterproductive," Major Douche said. "I need information, and you can't give it if you're dead. Second, we don't believe in killing people out of hand."

The prisoner sneered again, and chuckled.

"You rape and murder at will, and condemned entire nations to die because of your hatred and prejudice," he snarled. "I have no reason to believe you won't kill me."

"Fair enough," the Major said, shrugging. "I'm not here to argue with you. I'm just here to talk."

"We have nothing to discuss," snapped the prisoner. "Kill me, release me, send me back to my cage. I have nothing else to speak of to you."

"Maybe," the Major said. "It's going to be irrelevant soon, anyway. Nod is folding on every front, and Kane's little uprising is already over with, as far as we're concerned."

"Liar," the prisoner snarled. "You have no proof of that, no way to verify it."

"No, but you yourself saw what was happening to the Brotherhood when you were captured," the Major replied.

"A momentary setback," the prisoner hissed. "You think I have not seen defeats in war?"

By now, the two door guards knew, the conversation was progressing into a verbal pissing match, which was just fine. Major Douche wanted a reaction from the man, to rile him up, to make him get emotional and let something slip.

"Nod is impotent," the interrogator replied. "Kane threw his best punch at us, and we took it on the chin and gave it right back. He can't throw anything else at us that we can't crush."

"You fool," the soldier said, leaning forward. There was a twitch of movement from the soldiers at the door, but nothing more. "Kane has defied your idiotic governments for half a century and more! You think that the Messiah would spend himself in a single attack like this?"

"I know he won't," the Major growled right back. "I've seen what Nod can do. _You've_ seen what they can do. Nod is defeated. Kane has nothing that he can touch us with. He has lost."

"No," the Nod soldier snarled, trying to stand up. "You know nothing! Fire will fall from the sky. Disease shall waste your _bodies_!" He rose as much as he could, and the soldiers stepped forward, prepared to restrain him. "Your soul will cry out _for forgiveness_, when Kane _unleashes his fury_!"

"Really, now," Major Douche said, settling back and smiling, affecting amusement. "Why should I believe that?"

"Because . . . ." The prisoner stopped, going silent, and his eyes flicked to the Ragland and Person, then back to Douche. He sat down, and then went silent again, and stayed that way for the rest of the session. He spoke not a word for another hour, apparently understanding what the Major had attempted to get out of him.

That was fine. Person and Ragland knew Major Douche, and they knew that he'd gotten a lot more out of those few sentences than the Nod trooper could possibly realize.

* * *

"Security here is tighter than the general's-

"Finish that statement, Private Boulton, and you're on latrine duty," Commander Karrde barked. He wasn't in the mood for banter with his escort, and the soldier in question – a reservist called up to help replace the million casualties suffered over the last weeks – went quiet.

The debris that had littered the entryways of the Pentagon had been cleaned up, and the building actually looked almost pristine and unmarred by the vicious fighting that had raged outside its walls a couple weeks ago. It had to have taken one hell of a clean-up effort to get the detritus of war cleared away, but the presence of a battalion's worth of reporters and news crews showed why.

"War is inseparable from politics, but the advent of the television has made them both butt-buddies with Hollywood."

"Sir?" asked Private Boulton.

"Quote I heard somewhere," Karrde muttered. "Let's go."

The Private followed Karrde as he moved across the main entrance, and the young soldier made good use of the added mass his armor gave him to gently shoulder a path through the myriad array of civilians and soldiers milling about the lobby.

What felt like a week later, Karrde had passed through the multiple security checks leading deeper into the facility, noting that security was even more paranoid this time around, and for good reason. The pair moved into the lowest levels of the Pentagon, and once they passed through the final checkpoint, a familiar face was there to greet him.

"Commander Karrde," Lieutenant Sandra Telfair offered, walking toward them, her gray uniform nearly invisible against the blank concrete walls and cold blue-white lighting. Though she offered him a smile, it was somewhat subdued, and he could still see some of the fading bruises and scrapes on her face from the action two weeks ago.

"Lieutenant," he replied. "Is the general ready to see me?"

"Yes sir, he's reviewing the intelligence files now," she said. "Please, come with me."

The lieutenant was a bit colder and quieter than the last time he'd seen her, and he'd gotten secondhand reports of what had happened to her. As they walked down the corridor, he glanced back at Boulton, and the soldier seemed to get the message, letting them get a few steps ahead.

"Lieutenant," he said, choosing his words carefully. "I heard about what happened out there, and . . . ." She stopped, looking back at him, and he caught a mixture of emotions there, tinged with a bit of pain. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" she replied, blinking.

"My troops were the relief force that went to assist the convoy," he said. "My men arrived at the ambush site but we didn't find any survivors. I didn't order them to search the area, and pulled them back to the Pentagon. We assumed no survivors, and I decided that we didn't have time to search for prisoners." He inhaled, and exhaled. "I apologize for that. If I'd known you were-"

"You would have pulled men away from the Pentagon to save me?" she asked. He stopped at the interruption, closed his eyes, and tried to respond. She cut him off before he could.

"Commander, even you knew what had happened, you couldn't have afforded the manpower combing an unsecured part of the city looking for a single prisoner of war," she said. Her words were clinical, straightforward, and held no accusation or venom. "I understand. Don't beat yourself up over it. I was on my own."

That last line held a bit of emotion, just a slight tremble, but he caught it. She pressed her lips together, and her fingers tightened around the folders she was carrying.

"Lieutenant, are you okay?" he asked. He didn't know the specifics of what had happened to her, just that she'd been captured and had managed to escape by the skin of her teeth.

"Yes," she said, nodding quickly, and started walking down the corridor again. "I'm . . . I'm fine."

_No one who says "I'm fine" like that is fine_, he thought. He was seeing what might have been post-traumatic stress, though he wasn't an expert on the condition. He didn't know what they'd done to her in captivity, but he had some rough ideas, and Karrde wondered if asking her about them was just bringing up all-too-sharp memories.

"Did General Granger say what he wanted me for?" he asked. She shook her head, relaxing a little bit as they changed topics.

"No, but if the intel he's had me processing is any clue . . . ." She paused, and shook her head. "Sorry, nearly broke opsec." She exhaled as she walked. "I'm tired."

"We all are," he replied. They continued walking in silence for a few minutes, until they reached the entrance to General Granger's command center. As usual, the room was abuzz with semi-organized chaos as nearly a hundred people orchestrated the highest levels of a war across six continents and four oceans. More than fifty million GDI soldiers were mobilized, fighting more than three times their number of Nod forces across the globe.

The scale of the war boggled Karrde's mind, and the reality of what he'd experienced in the field clashed violently with the calm, vaguely chaotic nature of the command center directed those vast swathes of violence.

General Granger stood by that same free-standing display of a dozen flatscreens he'd been glaring at the last time Karrde spoke with him, and the collection of screens had not earned any mercy from his gaze. Sandra disappeared off to the side, probably heading for her desk, and Boulton maintained his respectful distance.

Granger stared at the display, showing data feeds from across the globe, and finally glanced up. For all the hell that had been raging for the last few weeks, Granger seemed to not have been affected. If anything, he seemed younger and more animate, as if the war had shaken off years of lethargy. That came out in the quick snap of his voice.

"Commander," he said, sharp and precise. "Have you been watching the news?"

"On and off," Karrde replied. He'd long since learned of the importance of news networks in gathering intelligence and battlefield awareness. They often knew more than field intelligence officers.

"No matter what you've seen on the news," Granger said, "you mark my words, this war is far from over."

"I gathered that, sir," he replied, gesturing to the politely leashed madness that was the command center.

"We've got a number of Blue Zones up for grab that could go either way," the General added. "Half of my regional commanders are political appointments by Zone governors that barely know how to wage war. I've had to rip apart entire commands in Africa, Yemen, Argentina . . . ." He stopped, and shook his head. "But that's not what worries me right now. Come here."

Karrde stepped across the room as Granger stood next to one of the displays, and the General gestured to the screen.

"InOps has been interrogating some Nod POWs," he explained. "We've come across some spouting similar threats. Here, have a look."

He hit a couple of buttons, and on the screen appeared a video, displaying a Nod soldier in standard POW garb, who looked haggard but healthy. His face was twisted in that unique brand of quiet, barely constrained religious frenzy that Karrde had seen plenty of times before.

"_This is only the beginning,"_ the man was hissing, "_Fire will fall from the skies . . . disease will waste your bodies . . . . and your souls will cry for _forgiveness_!"_

The man suddenly shot forward in his seat.

"_When Kane unleashes his _fury_!"_

Granger paused the video.

"Someone's angry," Karrde muttered, glancing back to the General.

"Maybe he saw his reflection in the camera lens," Granger quipped. "It could just be typical Nod rhetoric, but it sounds to me like they're preparing to use WMDs."

"Just now?" Karrde asked. "They nuked the Philadelphia. I'd figure they'd have more nukes at their disposal."

"They want the Blue Zones intact, just as much as we do," he replied. "But we're pushing them back into several Yellow Zones, and nuclear deployment might seem a more promising option for them. Tell the truth, that's a big problem, as we've not been able to concentrate enough force to achieve breakthroughs due to fears of nuclear weapons deployment. That's why I'm sending you to North Africa. They launched on the Philadelphia from Cairo. If Nod's got the goods, that's where you'll find them."

"What kind of force will I have at my disposal?" Karrde asked, mind suddenly jumping at the sudden change in direction.

"We're deploying the 14th Infantry out of Berlin, along with the 2nd Heavy Armored as support. Brigadier Sanderson and the 7th Marines are taking part as well. I'm giving you command of an armored battalion out of the 2nd Heavy, and your pick of the rest of the battalion combat team to go with it."

"Understood, sir," Karrde said, nodding. "Any unit I want?"

"Within reason, yes," Granger replied. "Better to pick some units from here in B-2, makes the logistics of getting them over there easier. I've already got your intelligence team assembled. Sandra's putting together the rest of the information."

Karrde glanced back at the lieutenant's desk, but she had disappeared.

"Who's heading up my intel and liaison team?" Karrde asked.

"Lieutenant Kirce James," Granger replied. "I figured you'd work well with her."

"Yes sir," Karrde replied, nodding. "She did a hell of a job during the battle for the Pentagon." Dealing with her on an interpersonal level might have been a challenge, but Karrde wasn't going to deny that Lieutenant James was probably the best he'd ever seen at organization, intelligence gathering, and communication between different units.

"Do we have a timetable for deployment?" Karrde added.

"Soon," Granger said. "I want your task force ready to move inside of the next two weeks. I've already gotten transport arrangements underway. And Commander . . . ."

He paused, glancing around the room.

"Try to keep this deployment low-key. If word gets out that we're hunting Nod WMDs, it could start a panic. Director Boyle doesn't need to know about this."

"Understood, sir."

* * *

The beeping on the phone beside his bed jerked him awake, the gentle ringtone sounding like screaming harpies to his sleep-addled mind. It took him a second to remember his name (Logan Rawne) or where he was (Temple Prime, Hand of Nod Delta 2-4). Rawne opened his eyes, bleary and his muscles feeling like lead weights. He could hear water running somewhere nearby.

The phone rang again, and he sat up, shaking his head and running a hand through his black hair – a couple of inches longer than it had been when he'd been in Washington six weeks ago. He looked around the interior of his private quarters in the Hand of Nod's lower levels. It was dark, as per the usual lighting standards in Nod facilities, but with a flick of a switch Rawne had the lamp beside his bed activated. The room wasn't terribly decorated, with basic furniture including a desk, some chairs, a table, a side kitchen, and a doorway leading to the private bath. At least it was better than the common areas where most of the troops slept.

_Scratch that_, Rawne thought with a grin. This was a mostly-female barracks, which made the common areas the best part of the building.

The phone rang again, and he reached over, snatching it up.

"Rawne," he grunted.

"_Ah, Commander!"_ LEGION's voice said, cheery in the way that only a suspiciously-unhinged AI could be. _"I was worried I'd missed you."_

The AI had data feeds from every camera in the fortress-city. It would have been impossible for it to have "missed" him.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, climbing out of the bed. He shivered, but only for a couple of seconds as his naked body adjusted to the temperature. He checked himself in the mirror over his desk. He was still the lean, lightly-muscled whipcord of a soldier he'd been all these years, but the beard on his face and his sideburns had grown out a bit. Having spent nearly six weeks lounging around the city while the war was raging had left him bored enough that he'd tried styling the beard, but nothing worked out quite as well as he'd liked.

"_I'm simply relaying a communication,"_ the AI replied in his cheerful-yet-sinister British accent. _"General Qatar wishes to speak with you at Temple Prime at your earliest convenience."_

Translation: right the hell now. You didn't keep Killian Qatar, or any high-level Nod officer, waiting if they said to come at your convenience.

He sighed the long-suffering sigh of someone whose pleasurable life was being brought to an end by the demands of reality, and glanced to the bathroom door. He could still hear the shower running in there. He'd been looking forward to some early-morning exercise.

"Let her know that I'm on my way," he said.

"_Very good, Commander,"_ LEGION replied, and the phone hung up.

Of course, Qatar could have had a communications officer ring him up instead to relay the message, but the fact that she'd ordered the AI to devote processing cycles to locating and communication with him – however little power that took – meant that Qatar had something important to say to him. Since he'd spent the last six weeks sitting out the war, he was itching to get back into action, and Rawne hoped Qatar had a job for him to do.

He was halfway through pulling on his pants when the bathroom door opened, and steam drifted out, followed by a naked woman.

That wasn't terribly strange, at least in Rawne's experience, but the tall, selnder woman who emerged had a body marked with a series of plastic nodes along her neck, spine, shoulders, upper arms, and thighs. More plastic ringed her eyes, which glittered with a metallic blue. Despite all of this, she was still quite attractive, and Rawne had found the exotic nature of her heavy cybernetic implants an intriguing part of her.

He'd met a few Avatar pilots in the flesh before, but Major Yvonne Voldymyr was the first he'd ever bedded. It was a . . . novel experience.

"Who was that?" she asked, her voice a curious mixture of Ukrainian and German accents. Most other women would have moved with a bit of sexuality to their steps, or spoken in a husky voice around him, but Voldymyr was matter-of-fact, her words clipped and almost dull. It was a side effect of spending so much time sharing the mind with an AI.

"My wake-up-call, Major," he replied with a dramatic sigh. "It appears General Qatar finally has a use for me."

"At least someone has," she mused, a ghost of a smile on her face. Like most Avatar pilots, her pale hair was shaved clean off. She began shouldering on some clothes.

Most of the women in the Brotherhood's armed forces were more muscular; between the physical demands of military training and low-grade Tiberium mutation, the female population was a quite built. Rawne had no issues with that – a strong woman was a desirable one - but the Avatar pilots were, by nature, typically less exposed to violence and the harsh weather, spending most of their time in enclosed environments. That lent them a suppleness and softness that he enjoyed.

"Major, you wound me," he said, putting a hand to his heart. "You seemed to have gotten quite a bit of use out of me."

"Somewhat," she agreed, and smirked again, pulling on her pants. "Not enough."

Of course, it also lent them a cold, logical mentality that often developed into biting sarcasm. It didn't help that Avatar pilots were, as a whole, fiercely independent-minded people who were already highly-valued and respected for their station. But then, Rawne found a woman who didn't fawn over him to be a refreshing experience.

"Perhaps we'll be able to please one another again someday," he offered, to which she shook her head.

"Unlikely," Voldymyr said. "You're being deployed abroad, while I'm assigned to protecting Temple Prime."

He lightly ran a hand along the back of her shoulder, brushing the sensitive skin around her implants, and she tensed for a moment.

"I could arrange for you to come with me," he offered, to which she looked up and speared him with a cold smile.

"You assume you offer me something worthwhile," she replied. Rawne couldn't help but chuckle, and bowed a bit at the waist.

Twenty minutes later, Rawne was freshened and ready in his simple day uniform. Yvonne had left, sadly, but he could find a replacement easily enough. After strapping on his pistol, the Commander stepped outside his quarters, to find his bodyguard detachment waiting for him.

"Commander!" snapped the woman leading his detail, saluting. The rest followed suit. They were all wearing modernized versions of the black armor favored by the Brotherhood's professional infantry, though instead of helmets they'd all gone for multipurpose goggles. The lenses of their headgear gleamed brightly in the darkened hallway, excepting that of the detail leader, whose headgear was pushed up onto her forehead.

"Sergeant Marona," Rawne nodded, and returned the salute. The young woman leading his detail smiled tightly. Her eyes glimmered with red highlights, the only sign that they'd been replaced, though her features were scarred viciously around her eye sockets, both from the surgery and the shrapnel wounds.

The woman was grateful to him, which made her loyal. He already knew she was brave and skilled, and now that he'd engendered her loyalty, she had the perfect traits for a bodyguard.

"Let's carry on, shall we?"

* * *

Rawne's good cheer lasted for a good long while, even through the paranoia of Temple Prime's security concerns. However, it keeled over and died a swift, merciful death when he entered the uppermost levels of the facility, where Killian Qatar resided behind the great black desk that only Kane normally commanded from.

The good cheer died because Qatar was upset. Rawne normally became worried when a beautiful woman was upset, but that worry shifted to quiet fear when said woman was able to level entire geographic zones at a word.

"Commander," she said, her tone quick and brusque as he approached. "It is as we feared."

This was going to be good.

"GDI has retaliated with their usual 'shock and awe.' It seems a single GDI commander from the northeastern Blue Zone has rallied their forces far sooner than expected."

A flash of rage ran through Rawne at that. He knew exactly who it was that had ruined his assault and had stopped him at the Pentagon, but he didn't know how extensive the ripples from that battle had spread outward.

Qatar hit a button, and the desk's holographic display lit up, showing the Earth rendered in reds, blues, and yellows. Flashing icons and highlighted regions indicated where the war was raging. A few weeks ago, the image would have shown the warzones overlapping mostly with the Blue Zones, but now most of them had been pushed into the Yellow Zones.

"Not only have they driven us from these Blue Zones," Qatar was saying, helpfully telling him exactly what he could see. "But they are also decimating our Yellow Zone strongholds all over the map."

She went silent for a heartbeat, looking down at the desk.

"We should never have been so aggressive," she said quietly, "but who dares tell Kane he is overreaching without fear of punishment?"

That made Rawne raise an eyebrow. As devoted as he was to the Brotherhood, he could understand her frustration. Kane's order to withdraw following the defeat of his army at the Pentagon had gone against every bone in his body. Even so, he was surprised to see someone second-guessing the Messiah, even if she was his second in command.

Qatar seemed to notice his regard, for she looked up, and he saw a bit of exhaustion creep across her admittedly lovely features.

"Please, forgive my insolence, Commander," she apologized. "You must understand, I only want what is best for the Brotherhood. The thought of losing this war-"

She cut herself off, and he saw the weariness fade away, replaced by a staunch strength and determination. The weakness vanished as quickly as it came, and she stood.

"No," Qatar stated, firm and solid. "We will not lose. If Kane wants aggression, we shall obey."

"Are you giving me a command?" he asked. "A force to take on the offensive?"

"Yes," Qatar said, nodding. "We need you to turn around a critical battle that is going against us." She keyed the desk again, and the holographic display shifted to focus on the continent of South America.

"This Yellow Zone is our most pressing concern," she continued, and a point became highlighted, somewhere in the old Amazon River Basin. "We have a lab there. Our forces in the region are drawing heavy GDI fire, and Kane insists that we hold this facility at any cost."

She closed the display.

"The base if a Black Hand facility under the command of Brother-General Dego. You'll be placed in command of the defense of the facility. I'll forward the relevant data to you," she said, and that troubled expression came back, drifting over her features. "I wish I could tell you more, Commander, but even I do not know what is going on inside of there."

Rawne did his best to hide his surprise. Qatar was Kane's second, but he was keeping secrets even from her?

Treachery, betrayal, and secrets were second nature to the Brotherhood, but Rawne didn't like the implications of what Qatar was saying to him. Kane had been betrayed countless times, and while that warranted necessary caution, Qatar was deeply loyal to him. Keeping secrets from her was not the way to engender trust.

"Very well, General," Rawne said, hiding his discomfort. "I'll put together a team to accompany me, if that's acceptable to you."

"Please," she said, and gave him a brittle smile. "Good luck, Commander."

* * *

One million casualties totaled up to about five percent of GDI's standing military force – two percent, if one counted reserves. And when over a million people died in the span of a week's fighting, that left holes in the command chain. Units had to be reconstituted, replacements had to be trained, and new units had to be formed to deal with the losses in active duty units. Two entire reserve divisions had to be cannibalized for replacements for several active divisions.

From the bureaucratic mess came a torrent of promotions, some deserved, a lot not quite so.

Thus, six weeks into the war, Corporal Mitchell Colt, scout trooper for the existing-on-paper-only 4th Battalion of the 103rd Recon ended PT one morning to discover he was _Sergeant_ Mitchell Colt, with transfer papers to join the First Special Expeditionary Task Force as a scout specialist, along with the rest of the survivors of 4th Battalion.

A notice was attached that this was a strictly volunteer outfit due to the dangerous nature of the missions they were going to be tasked with, but that same notice also mentioned that Commander Alexander Karrde was in charge of the expeditionary unit, which precluded anyone from backing out.

With Andrews Air Force Base leveled, and all Tiberium manufacturing going to replacing destroyed ground equipment and reconstruction, Langley AFB was now the major air hub of the Washington DC area. V-35 Ox transports and much larger aircraft were constantly landing and taking off, though with the forward airbases being established further west as Nod withdrew, the Orcas, Hammerheads, and Firehawks were in less abundance.

There were thousands of soldiers and airmen at the air base, most of them simply passing through or mustering for deployment elsewhere. Colt rode in on a transport bus that dropped him off at the north side of the base; the hulks of destroyed Nod vehicles from where they had tried to cross the field were still visible.

He trudged onto the tarmac with the rest of the troops from 4th Battalion, clad in most of his armor, with his helmet on his belt and his infantry pack on his back. His duffel hung from one shoulder, and his rifle from the other. Other troops were similarly outfitted, carrying hefty backpacks and clad in full armor. They were packed and prepared for a long deployment.

A line of Ox transports were set up on the tarmac, many of them with underslung cargo modules that were being loaded with supplies and vehicles. A platoon-sized force of airmen were directing the incoming troops to where they needed to go, and Colt saw that there were a lot more men than just the survivors of 4th Battalion. He could see a company-strength unit of Zone Troopers and their attached armory platoon moving up to one of the Oxen. Predators, Slingshots, and a quartet of Shatter SBTs were being loaded onto another, the hovering vehicles humming quietly as they waited to be boxed up. He saw hundreds – scratch that – _thousands _of infantry moving across the tarmac toward the waiting transports.

"Is this the entire task force?" asked one of the troopers behind him. Colt shrugged.

"Doubt it," he said. "Heard they were putting together a brigade-strength combat team, and we're the recon element. Armor, air power, artillery. The works."

"What kind of specialist job requires ten thousand men and an entire armored brigade?" asked another.

"Hell if I know," Colt said, before his words were drowned out by a yelling airman, who directed them toward their waiting Ox. The engines were screaming as they got closer, and the troops boarding it had to do so in a rough line to avoid being blasted backward by the roaring engines. The laboring machinery's grind settled into his bones as he strode toward the transport, shifting the gear on his back to a vaguely more comfortable position.

Sergeant Mitchell Colt clambered onto the V-35, sitting down beside the rest of the troops of his new recon company. He looked up and down the double rows of soldiers, troopers young and old, and saw a mixture of everything from eagerness to anxiety to bone-weariness.

As the ramp closed, he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and waited for the next battle.

Within seconds, he was asleep. He neither heard nor saw Commander Karrde as he walked onto the Ox and took a seat with his men, next to a supposedly retired Colonel by the name of Parker.

Havoc nodded to the Commander, who settled back in his chair. Nick Parker was an old man, but he knew how to fight, and the Commander had asked him to join as an advisor. Parker was happy to oblige; the opportunity to paste Nod – and to help young soldiers paste Nod troops – was too good to pass up.

* * *

Sarajevo in general and Temple Prime in particular were like any other major city administrated by Nod, which was to say they were fundamentally like any city administrated by any government with modicum of competence. There were vehicles moving through the tight avenues between the immense, skyscraper-height walls dividing the city into a trio of tiers. There were crowds flowing between the immense monoliths and Obelisks and around the iconography of the Brotherhood. The people wore rugged clothes, suiting the landscape they lived in, for even in the heart of Nod civilization, life was still a rough struggle that favored the hard and prepared.

Rawne moved through the streets on foot, having parked his vehicle near one of the multitudes of shrines that were scattered across the obsidian-and-crimson-colored city. Like the others, the building was shaped like a flower made of stained glass and wrought iron. The four points of metal and glass that made up the shrine's "petals" spread outward, and dangling from them were metal globes holding glowing shards of Tiberium, contained in exclusion fields.

Rawne's bodyguard pushed through the crowd of Nod civilians, which gave the armored soldiers a respectful berth anyway, and the Commander passed through the archway that led into the shrine itself.

They called these places the "secret shrines" though it was pretty obvious what they were to any outside observer. The low red lighting and waist-high mist, intermixed with the intonations of the faithful and the cloying stench of incense, were unmistakable. He'd heard one fanatic say that the "secret" part came from how this place was used to implement the secrets, as this was where ritualistic infusions of processed Tiberium and the distinctive Tiberium tattooing processes took place. Rawne still thought it was a bunch of bullshit, but he respected the intention and purpose of the shrines – especially this one.

For unlike many other shrines, this one bore a symbol over each doorframe, showing a spread hand with the middle and ring finger touching, the symbol of the Black Hand.

Two disciples in black power armor stood guard down the short corridor running from the entrance to the main chapel, both bearing a light machinegun. They stood at attention, but stiffened further as the Commander and his guard approached. From beyond the door, Rawne could hear the continued intonations from the men in the chapel itself.

"Outsiders are not permitted entry during-" one of the disciples said, but Rawne simply pushed past them, signaling for his bodyguard to remain behind. The two disciples were about to stop him when he tapped his command computer, and their helmets' optics flashed with his Commander's override and authentication. They jerked back at the sudden display, and moreso at the assertion of his authority.

Rawne didn't hide his grin. Sometimes, being an ass could be cathartic.

The shrine's main chapel was a circular room with two dozen rows of semi-circular pews surrounding a central pedestal, upon which was a clear collision-glass dome. The dome itself contained a small mound of Tiberium, sealed within an exclusion field.

Surrounding the dome and speaking in solemn prayer were one hundred and twenty members of the Black Hand, all standing. Each Hand wore his or her power armor, with the helmets held in the crooks of their left elbows, and a weapon – rifle, laser rifle, or flamethrower – in their right, at rest with the buttstock on the floor. Their heads were bowed in prayer.

In the center of the chapel, walking around the dome of sacred green crystal, was Brother-Captain Jose Alvarez, leading the prayer as he walked. Hanging over the green dome were a scrolling series of holographic names. Rawne recognized the layout of a casualty list report, and the names listed had ranks of Disciple through Brother-Major.

Rawne was silent as the Black Hand went through their ritual honoring of the dead, which typically came at the end of any particular round of worship. The Black Hand's honoring was a variation of a similar practice carried out across the Brotherhood, though far more formal. After about ten minutes, the list of names came to an end, and Jose raised his head, along with the rest of the Hands present. He stalked around the circle, and his voice, clear and loud, boomed out across the chapel.

"We have sworn our lives in the service of the Brotherhood," he called.

"In Brotherhood, we are all equal," the Hands replied.

"Within our Brotherhood, we are united."

"Within unity, we are victorious."

"By attaining unity, we strive for peace."

"With our lives, we sacrifice to bring peace to the Brotherhood."

"Through our lives, we bring power to the Brotherhood. With power, the Brotherhood brings peace."

"Peace through power."

"In the name of Kane."

The service ended, and the Hands began to file out. None of them noted Rawne or responded to him as they passed where he was seated. Once the way was clear, he rose and walked toward where Jose stood by the dome. His old friend was peering at the Tiberium within, expression solemn but unreadable.

"Jose," he called as he approached, and the Hand looked up. His face broke out into a smile as Rawne approached, and they shook hands.

"Logan," the Alvarez said. "I didn't expect to see you attending one of our private services."

"I'm in a bit of a rush," Rawne said. "General Qatar has given me a special assignment in Brazil. I want someone I can rely on by my side out there."

Jose's face screwed up at that, and he looked away for a second. His fingers drummed against his armor's thigh plates for a few more seconds.

"If you're still not up for it, I understand," Rawne offered, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Hell, no one should have had to do what you did and come out fine."

Rawne considered his troops chess pieces, but that was because he understood that if he saw them as faces, then it would become personal, and he couldn't do his job if it became personal. Jose had been forced to look into the faces of men and women who trusted him, and who had looked up to him and followed him, before he ended their lives.

No one who was still human came out the other side of that without being messed up.

Rawne waited a couple of minutes while his friend stared at the crystal, and finally, he turned and walked to a pew to sit down. Just as he reached it, Jose spoke up.

"Logan," he said quietly. Rawne turned to face his friend. Jose's head was bowed, his eyes closed.

"Two of them were crying," he whispered. "Not in pain, but because they knew what was about to happen. Another begged." He exhaled. "One was the same age as my boy, Carlos. Had the same features, same hair."

He put a hand to the dome, and leaned on it, and suddenly the forty-one years the Hand had spent fighting for his life in the Yellow Zone became apparent. Rawne watched and waited, either for the breakdown or the recovery.

Jose breathed deeply for a moment, eyes closed, and then finally pushed himself off the glass, before turning to face his comrade.

"General Killian Qatar?" he asked, and straightened. "That is as good as an order from Kane himself. How could I refuse?"

"Glad to have you at my back, Jose."

The Black Hand nodded, and the two men walked out of the shrine together, and back to the war that awaited them.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: These character oriented chapters are actually rather challenging to write, for me.

Until next chapter . . . .


	21. Chapter XX: Dust

_**Act II**_

_**Chapter XX: Dust**_

_We thought fighting Nod in the Blue Zones was bad. We thought driving them back into their own hellhole Yellow Zones would be easier. Once we were outside the Blue Zones, we could let loose with the heavy firepower._

_We were wrong, and by the time we reached Sarajevo, seven million men and women had paid for that assumption. And those were just our military personnel._

_-General Jack Granger_

* * *

"So, this is Egypt."

"Never been here before. It looks like . . . like . . . ."

"A thousand square kilometers of shit."

". . . . yeah. That about sums it up."

The two Zone Troopers stood on a sand dune overlooking the flat expanses of Egypt, criss-crossed by the old, rusted metal of a pumping station that had been established before the Second Tiberium War. Their sensor suites were scanning the desert for any signs of movement or disturbance, and their suits showed the incoming information as a multilayered stream of data across their HUDs.

"Captain, this is supposed to be the Nile River Basin, right?" added the enlisted soldier beside the senior Zone Trooper.

"That's right, Corporal," replied the Captain. He frowned as he said that. What was the Corporal's name again? Only the callsign showed up on his HUD.

"Nile River got choked into dry riverbed by green by the end of the 2030's," the Corporal said. "Place has been green as hell for twenty years."

"And there's nothing here," the Captain said, nodding.

The brown sands and rusty pipe were all they saw, for kilometers in every direction. Egypt was a Yellow Zone, nearly overrun with Tiberium, and the Nile River Basin had been the heart of the infestation in this part of North Africa. The entire area to their west should have been a wide field of green and blue crystal, and worked over by Nod harvesting convoys. Instead, only sand and rock was visible beneath the pipes.

"Sir, where the hell is all the Tiberium?"

"Well, finding it's our job, isn't it Corporal?" replied the Captain.

As if to underscore his point, they saw a faint plume of light and smoke, and from somewhere out there, about two kilometers distant, they saw a needle shoot up into the sky. It curved and then there was a flash of light, and one of the data streams on the Troopers' HUDs vanished.

"That's _another_ UAV," muttered Captain Victor Wallace.

Promotions had spread around like wildfire over the last two months, and medical technology was advanced enough that men with serious trauma could be treated and back in service in a matter of weeks or months. The wonders of nanotech manufacturing, EVA-operated hospitals, and micro-surgery meant that the dozen broken bones, three lacerations, and lung trauma Wallace had suffered defending Blue Zone B-2 had been patched up in three weeks, and another week afterward, he'd been certified as being back in fighting condition. A day afterward, his promotion to Captain had arrived, and a week after that he'd been assigned to GDI's First Expeditionary Special Task Force.

Now he stood on a hill in a Nod-controlled Yellow Zone, reconnoitering for the battalion and watching as the elusive but unquestionably present Nod troops in the region continued to down their recon UAVs with annoying regularity.

"How many is that today?" Corporal No-name asked.

"Seventeen for us," Wallace replied, and sent a quick automated update, requesting another UAV. He immediately got a reply from the battalion EVA, stating a replacement would be airborne and to them in ten minutes. Hooray for in-field equipment fabrication.

"Alright, Corporal," Wallace said, looking up from his display. "We'll need to advance to marker-"

"Incoming!" the Corporal yelped. Wallace's eyes flicked up, and he saw another missile, this one coming in a _lot_ closer, and directly toward them. Without stopping to think, Wallace activated his jetpack, as did the Corporal. As the two troopers rocketed into the air, the missile descended in a deceptively gentle arc and slammed into the dune where they'd been standing. Shrapnel and sand went flying in a wild, blossoming detonation, and Wallace's display flashed red as the whipping metal and concussive force battered his suit.

A couple seconds later, the two Troopers touched down nearly thirty meters away, and without needing to say anything, they began bounding for the nearest cover – a tangle of a half-dozen pipes each as wide around as a Predator tank, about sixty meters away. They'd barely started moving before Wallace spotted contacts on his helmet's HUD, mostly in the form of incoming fire. Several missiles lanced toward the Zone Troopers, mostly unguided rocket-propelled grenades.

"First Platoon, Oracle Actual, taking incoming fire," Wallace barked over his radio. "Multiple contacts, estimate one-fifty hostiles, repeat one-five-zero." He added in their location to the outgoing data, pinging their spot on the map to keep the rest of the battalion updated.

He could see infantry contacts on his display, a hundred to two hundred meters out, and small-arms fire started flying his way. Wallace didn't even consider firing back; there were too many hostiles. He engaged his jetpack and leapt through the air, momentarily throwing off their aim. Rocket-grenades exploded below and behind him, and the sand burst and flew as bullets pocked the ground where they'd been standing.

They came down behind the pipes, and Wallace wasted no time. The Zone Trooper suit had some utility gear on it, and one of those pieces of gear doubled as a close-combat weapon: a small arm-mounted saw, intended to slice through either suits that were damaged to get to the pilot or to cut through other metal barriers.

"Corporal!" Wallace barked as the arm-mounted saw emerged on his left arm. It was a flat, oval-shaped blade with serrated, diamond-edged teeth. The Corporal was already following his lead. "Square hole here!" he added, pointing to one of the pipes.

Missiles, grenades, and small arms fire rained down around them, but behind the pile of pipes they had a moment of cover, and more importantly they were out of sight. The two Zone Troopers went to furious work, sawing one of the horizontal pipes. Within a couple of seconds, they sliced a two-by-two meter square in the pipe.

"Inside!" Wallace ordered, covering the Corporal's back. The young trooper crouched and stepped into the cavernously-large pipe, sweeping it with his railgun. A rocket grenade whipped overhead, exploding on another pipe twenty meters away. Wallace backed into the pipe, not waiting for the Corporal to call out an all-clear.

That nearly killed him.

"Contact contact!" the Corporal suddenly yelled, and his railgun roared in the confined space. Wallace's HUD flashed with sudden thermal spikes that he hadn't been able to pick up through the metal, and he saw a man's body fly apart under the impact of a railgun shot. Wallace spun around, raising the unwieldly anti-material weapon in his hands, and spotted a half-dozen other figures in the gloom, their thermal signatures identifying them as humans wearing fatigues and carrying weapons that glowed on the infrared sensor.

One of the Nod soldiers, not two meters away, shoved his laser rifle into Wallace's armored face and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Sergeant Mitchell Colt lay in the sand, watching over the expanse of sand, rock, and the occasional pipe, and came to a stunning conclusion: Egypt was hot.

That sort of conclusion should have obvious, and everyone knew Egypt was a pretty hot place in the daytime, but knowing it didn't match experiencing it – especially when one experienced it in full armor and enclosed helmet. Technically, the desert-pattern armor issued to GDI infantry had a skin-contact cloth layer that served to absorb sweat. Practically-speaking, the cloth did absorb sweat, to the point where it felt like a warm, damp, stinky towel wrapped around the whole body. It wasn't exactly comfortable, and sweat was dripping down Colt's face – in spite of the cloth he wore over his forehead - to the point that he had to keep the breath mask loose so sweat wouldn't collect inside it. He wanted to wipe his face, but Colt was disciplined enough to keep that impulse under control while concealed.

The fact that he'd been dealing with the heat and laying prone in various other locations for three days straight with a bladder-bag while observing Nod movements helped with the discipline.

Normally, he'd have dug out a small observation foxhole and covered it with dirt, but up on the ridge he was camped upon, that would have been too visible. Instead, he was shrouded under a ghillie suit; it wasn't Nod-style optical camouflage, but was functional enough. The sophisticated array of lenses and sensors he had linked to his goggles told him everything that was happening in the valley below and to the east, and all his observations were being transmitted back to Pyramid Base via a line of point-to-point laser transceivers. The entire platoon was spread across two kilometers of desert in small three-man teams that switched on and off with recon and security. The recon element of the battalion was several kilometers east beyond the leading edge of the battalion's advance, and were doing their best to stay hidden and unnoticed.

He caught movement in his optics, and zoomed in. In the expanse of dust, sand, and open space festooned with pipes, he saw a line of scarab-like Scorpion tanks, with other vehicles: trucks and Reckoner APCs, both carrying infantry – a lot of infantry. As he watched, he countfed the moving forces, and noted they were heading west toward the advancing GDI elements. He double-checked the range, noted it on his wrist computer, and activated his transceiver.

"Caprica Two-Six," Colt reported. "Glassed contacts, seven hundred meters southwest. Estimate thirty vehicles, twelve Scorpions, seven Reckoners, remainder transport. Estimate one hundred plus foot mobiles. Heading east, estimated speed . . . ." He paused. "Twenty kilometers per hour."

Colt received a single chirp in response, as the EVA acknowledged his report.

Several minutes passed, and in the distance, he saw another UAV explode. Colt marked the origin of the missile launch, then wrote it down and reported it. It wasn't likely an airstrike could hit the launcher, and the operators were probably moving even now – it was too far for him to see the launcher itself – but he could at least get the word out that there was AA in that area.

Colt could see more movement to the east, and watched as more Nod vehicles began to appear on the horizon. He counted them, and kept sending reports back.

He settled in and remained silent, watching the world around him. It was different from what he'd done in Washington, and he didn't mind the quiet stillness; it was what Colt was trained for. Observation, invisibility, and silence.

* * *

Approximately two hundred kilometers west of the urban sprawl that had once been the cities of Alexandria and Cairo, another small city had sprung up out of the desert sands. Thick concrete walls encircled the city, and at regular intervals along the walls were high towers tipped with twin railguns, or low bunkers mounting anti-tank cannons or anti-air chainguns. Rows of low, half-cylinder barracks facilities were lined up, along with the enormous, blocky shapes of vehicle and munitions fabricators. Antennae farms, army bunkers, supply depots, and vehicle pools stretched up and down the length of the base. One section of the small city was devoted exclusively to lines of airpads, upon which sat dozens of aircraft, primarily Orca and Firehawk VTOL craft. One separate section of the base was devoted to a cluster of enormous refinery facilities. Thousands of men and women flowed between the various buildings, and vehicles regularly passed in and out of the gates, most often being convoys escorting Tiberium harvesters.

They'd named it Pyramid Base. Someone up there in the chain of command had a sense of humor, apparently. Two weeks ago, there had been nothing out here, until a series of V-35 Oxen swept in and deployed several hundred prefabricated buildings that would serve as the staging area for GDI's First Expeditionary Special Task Force.

"FESTF" was hard to verbalize, so most of the soldiers simply referred to it as the "GDI FEST" which was bastardized into "GDI FIST." However, one of the troops who had survived DC and the battle for B-2 had coined a different name for the task force: the Wild Cards.

Commander Karrde was only mildly embarrassed that the men had named their task force after him. He did nothing to suppress it. Somewhere along the line, one of the troops had produced a stencil showing a pair of aces (clubs and spades, to be precise) and the emblem started to get passed around the task force, showing up on their vehicles. Strictly non-regulation, of course, but Karrde issued an unofficial suggestion to leave the emblem for morale reasons.

He stood in the command bunker, watching his subordinates as they directed the seven battalions under his direct command. The task force had landed along with the main GDI thrust into North Africa, and they were in constant communication with call sign "Citadel," which was the central command for the seven GDI divisions being tasked with taking the northern coast of Africa.

Karrde leaned over the table in the middle of the room, a large holographic display that showed the positions of his forces relative to known enemy units. The EVAs were collating data acquired in the field and processed by other EVA units and their human analysts to keep the display updated in real-time. The FIST had been tasked with tracking down Nod's WMDs in Egypt, and while they knew about the main launch facility outside Cairo, there were other issues at hand.

There were reports – confirmed – that Nod was developing alternate WMDs in and around Alexandria, apparently based on Tiberium. Karrde had seen firsthand the effects of Nod's chemical-Tiberium missiles, and understood that if Nod was designing such a weapon, it could be devastating. They had to find and eliminate the research base where the devices were being assembled, which was why his recon elements were in the field right now, while the armor and air power remained in reserve to attack the moment they had a target.

Karrde's eyes flicked over the screen, and saw a sudden flash on the main display, showing an alert marker. Karrde immediately brought it up on his Comcom's display.

"Commander," one of the operations officers reported. "Oracle is-"

"Engaged, I see it," Karrde replied, nodding. He picked up several feeds from other units in that area, and read over the composite data as it was being collected, processed, and synthesized by the EVAs.

There was a battalion-strength Nod force twenty kilometers from the suspected location of the facilities where Nod was engaging in WMD research. The entire landscape was a riddled mixture of canyons gouged out by Tiberium veins and pipes that had pumped water through the region before the Nile had been choked to death by the crystal. Previously he had considered the area a barrier to their movements, being overrun by Tiberium, but the lack of any available Tiberium had forced him to adjust his plans. GDI could move through the area without worrying about exposure.

But then, so could Nod. Yet Nod wasn't using the new routes to move troops through the area. From what the recon elements were reporting, the Nod forces were using the rougher, hilly terrain north around the pipes. It was a tactical conundrum that demanded an answer. Either the Nod troops in the region were stupid, or . . . .

Or what?

He frowned, considering the situation even as his hands played over the Comcom. He highlighted the nearest units in the area and began to issue orders. Within the span of a few seconds, he'd ordered twenty platoons to individual locations and assignments, something that would have taken him valuable minutes of communicating through radio operators without the EVAs to help. Onscreen, the troops began to move out immediately.

Most of the leading elements were fast and light – his recon infantry and B Company, a "Wolfhound" unit of mechanized infantry in Guardian APCs and Pitbulls. They had a two armored platoons of Predators, and he had three squadrons of Firehawks and two of Orcas circling on stand-by. He would have sent them in closer, but Nod's own AA was heavy and the skies were filled with radar pings. The high casualty rate among his UAVs was proof of that.

The rest of his task force was about ten kilometers behind them, ready to move once the leading elements had engaged. Karrde was unwilling to commit more troops and vehicles to the front until he knew where their objective lay, and his recon told him the Nod forces were not as heavy, though Caprica had reported battalion-strength enemy forces north of the labs.

Karrde frowned and shook his head. Was he being too conservative? If he didn't commit more troops, could Nod overrun his leading elements?

The Commander watched, tapping the edge of his Comcom, and waited for the consequences of his orders to roll back.

* * *

His radio chirped, and Sergeant Colt glanced at his HUD. New orders, straight from Pyramid.

"Squad," he muttered. "Pack up. We're moving north. Commander wants us to active reconnoiter."

The rest of the team moved quietly, packing up what little they had laying out in total silence. A few minutes later the team was advancing north, hidden under their camouflage cloaks and moving like errant puffs of sand across the dunes.

* * *

"Look, I'm just saying we've got this gigantic, trillion-dollar ion cannon array in orbit, tanks the size of fucking houses, supersonic jet fighters that can hit the stratosphere, and these crazy-calculus advanced proto-world-conquering super AIs, and here we are in out fucking recon with our fucking super cloak-piercing sensors and radar array and guided missile launchers and auto-loading mortars, and for some mystical, unfathomable reason, we don't fucking have working, fucking, AC! This is bullshit of the biggest, bisioniest order."

"Peterson?"

"Yeah, Sarge?"

"Shut the fuck up."

The Pitbull, assigned to Alpha Squad, Second Platoon, bounced over the dunes, heading east toward where Oracle had engaged Nod ground elements, along with the rest of B Company, which was moving in a staggered line a kilometer wide. Sweat was running down everyone's faces, as Corporal Peterson was right; they had no working air conditioning inside the Pitbull, and the vehicle itself was buttoned up.

Sergeant Derek Hershey agreed with the corporal, wiping some sweat out of his eyes, but kept his gaze locked on the targeting display. Behind him, Corporal Willik did the same for the mortar. Bartilucci was in his usual spot beside Willik, rifle in hand. The squad had stayed together since the battle in DC and had survived Nod assault on the Pentagon; in fact, they were one of the rare units in 4th Battalion that had survived with all squadmembers alive and uninjured.

There was a brief ping on Hershey's sensor array, from one of the UAVs. He checked the feed, and saw thermal imaging that resembled Nod light vehicles and dismounted infantry. He thumbed his radio, notifying the company commander.

"Wildman, this is Spear Three. Contact five hundred meters." The UAV's feed suddenly cut out. "Light armor and infantry. Confirmed AA presence, over."

"_Copy, Spear Three," _came the reply. _"EVA is sorting targets now. Engage when cleared, then fire at will, over."_

"Copy, Wildman."

A second later, data streamed onto Hershey's screen, giving him targeting data for both the missiles and mortars. A couple more seconds passed, before his radio chirped again.

"_B Company, cleared to engage, then fire at will, over."_

A heartbeat later, a kilometer-long line of the Egyptian desert erupted with heat and light as the seventy armored vehicles in the lead element opened up in a single barrage of networked, directed fire. It was a classic GDI tactic, opening up with every weapon at once in a massed alpha strike intended to hammer the enemy with a single blow to disorient, shock, and demoralize them.

Missiles screamed through the air, tank shells erupted and lanced across the desert at distant targets, mortar shells cracked, rose, and fell, and the desert between five hundred and thousand meters away erupted into a blossom of fire and chaos.

Hershey began barking out movement and fire orders, watching the display and tracking the other Pitbulls in his platoon as they started across the desert. He heard the chattering of Guardian APCs' .50 caliber guns and the roar of missiles being fired as FGM-90 teams dismounted from the APCs and started firing long-range, UAV-guided shots.

Return fire came in almost as quickly, an initially ragged barrage of shells and missiles. Hershey didn't look up from his display as Peterson maneuvered the Pitbull across the desert; he wouldn't be fast enough to dodge incoming fire, but he could throw off enemy targeting to reduce the likelihood that they'd get hit. The Pitbulls wouldn't last long in a straightforward duel, unlike the Predators.

Standard tactics in open-ground warfare were to have the Pitbulls hit the frontline of the enemy and then circle around behind the main armored advance, where they could provide mobile fire support with their missiles and mortars. Second Platoon followed form, maneuvering around behind the Predators and Guardians as they continued to advance. The medium tanks and APCs rumbled past the lighter vehicles as they turned and began to move back and forth behind the heavier armor, keeping the heavy vehicles and sand dunes between themselves and the incoming Nod fire.

It wasn't perfect. As the ten Pitbulls of Second Platoon raced across the desert, a well-placed shell slammed into the side of Spear Seven's vehicle, blowing off the rear half of the Pitbull and sending the rest toppling forward.

"Shit!" Peterson snapped as they dodged around the flipping vehicle, men spilling out into the sand.

"Wildman, Spear Seven down," Hershey reported. "Medical required, over!"

Stopping to help would have left them vulnerable, and the likelihood anyone surviving was limited. Hershey went back to targeting, tracking threats on his display and noting the ones being targeted by his fellow gunners. Networked targeting allowed for hellishly efficient combat. He could see dozens of enemy vehicles, engaging the GDI company, along with what looked like hundreds of dismounted infantry scattered across the sands. He didn't know how Nod had managed to put that many troops on the ground without being noticed for this long.

The autoloaders finished prepping the next set of missiles, and Hershey designated a target for each. A couple of seconds later, the Pitbull shuddered as the launchers fired four more missiles at the line of advancing Nod troops.

* * *

"Contact, four hundred meters!" yelled Sergeant Hayes, vehicle commander of the Guardian APC. It was loaded with Third Squad from Fourth Platoon of B Company, and the grenadier squadron tensed up.

A moment later, the dual autocannons on top of the Guardian opened up, and the following seconds were a sudden storm of noise as the firing line of GDI vehicles cut loose. Thundercracks of outgoing tank shells, the whoosh of launching missiles and the thump of firing mortars punched through the armor plating, surrounding the squad with an ocean of deep, pounding noise.

Corporal Cale Winters hefted his grenade launcher, his whole body trembling with anxiety and anticipation. The rest of Echo Squad, Fourth Platoon was sitting in the troop compartment of the Guardian APC, peering out the firing slits with their grenade launchers ready.

"Standby to dismount!" Sergeant Hayes ordered. The autocannons roared again. Something detonated nearby, sending shivers through the whole vehicle.

"Stopping!" Hayes yelled. "Dismount!"

The APC came to a halt, and the ramps dropped. Echo Squad rose as one and rushed down the ramp. Two other Guardians had stopped, each about twenty meters apart, and were disgorging squads of riflemen. They'd come to a halt at the crest of a sand dune, positioned just behind it where the APCs could fire from a hull-down position. The three squads quickly spread out along the top of the dune, going prone. They didn't have time to dig out firing holes.

"Squad, fire at will!" came the order.

Cale picked up targets at three hundred meters now and advancing. No specific targets were highlighted on his HUD, so instead he picked out the range of the incoming hostiles. He spotted several platoons of advancing Nod infantry and armor rolling across the desert directly to their east, firing in their general direction, with more to the north and south. His helmet's built-in computer calculated range, wind-speed, drop, and velocity.

Cale steadied his breath gently, then swallowed his anxiety. He squeezed the trigger, and the grenade launcher thumped against his shoulder as it hurled explosives at the distant enemy.

* * *

"Target, Scorpion, four twenty, left one point one."

"Target acquired."

"Fire."

The Predator tank shuddered, noise hammered the crew, and just over four hundred meters away, a Nod tank was knocked to a halt. The high explosive shell cored the crew section, sending a plume of ugly black smoke billowing out into the air.

Major Jess Howell scowled as the Predator tank _Goldeneye_ (_who named these things? _she wondered) continued rolling forward. The rolling sand dunes, rocky ridges, and maze of pipes running across the desert to the east were making a fight that would normally be beyond two kilometers into the tank equivalent of close-quarters combat. They'd rolled up the initial Nod elements with the first barrage. Howell estimated at least a hundred infantry, twelve Scorpions, and maybe twice that many light vehicles were destroyed. But the Nod forces had numbers on their side, and the sheer amount of return fire was sending up a small sandstorm of exploding plumes from shells, mortars, and missiles.

The twenty Predators themselves were advancing, spread out with about one hundred meters between them for maneuvering room, with the APCs trailing as they dismounted infantry, and the Pitbulls moving back and forth behind them. The tanks were in the unhappy position of screening for the GDI infantry and light armor, taking hits and drawing shots away from the squishier troops.

The Predator shook as a close hit deflected off its armor. She picked out a target that she decided was responsible and returned fire. The shell slammed into the Scorpion's side armor and bounced off, failing to penetrate. The Predator's driver, a corporal named Brellin, sent the tank into a quick turn that threw up a small fountain of sand, and another shell detonated behind them. A second later, a red beam of light flashed into the same spot, fusing sand into glass.

Howell cursed, checking her optical feeds, and spotted the location of the beam cannon on her thermals. It was further back behind the main Nod lines, positioned behind a dune so that only the cannon itself was visible - and thus vulnerable.

"Fett, target beam cannon, five ten meters, left three point seven."

"Target acquired," Sergeant Fett responded. "It's behind the dune, ma'am."

"Take out the gun, that's all I care about."

The tank thundered again, and Fett's aim was true. The laser projector for the beam cannon was shredded clean off, mission-killing the self-propelled gun.

"Good hit," Howell said, smiling a tight grin. She kept that grin on her face as she saw the Nod forces arrayed against them. Despite the casualties, the Nod line was still putting out a constant wave of outgoing fire; rocket propelled grenades lanced across the distance, small arms fire and light machineguns were sweeping over the advancing GDI infantry, and anti-armor fire was hammering the tanks as they advanced and maneuvered. One of the predators had been immobilized, and several others were trailing smoke or were mauled by impacts.

"Brellin, keep us moving." She heard the clatter of the autoloader putting another shell in the chamber. "Okay, target Scorpion, Three seventy, right two point two, up one point four."

"Acquired."

"Fire."

* * *

Wallace twisted aside, a movement far more fluid and agile than the armor should have allowed. The laser beam flashed straight across Wallace's canopy, etching a long line across the combat glass. With a savage curse, he stepped forward, and his left arm lanced out before the Nod soldier could fire another beam. It was a clumsy, off-balance blow that would have barely staggered a human opponent if he was boxing or brawling.

The Zone armor amplified the jab, however, and a clumsy punch became a crushing impact that pulverized bone and sent the Nod soldier flying back half a dozen meters.

Then, everything went to hell.

There was a sudden scattering of hastily-fired laser beams, one of which slashed across Wallace's extended hand, and another that hit him in the chest, evaporating a layer of ablative armor. He heard the distinctly sickening sound of a running arm-saw slicing through human flesh; the Corporal whose name he couldn't remember was tearing apart another Nod trooper at close-range. The other Nod soldiers, showing up as blobs of heat on his thermals, were only a few meters away from the Zone Troopers. They had reacted with hasty and uncoordinated fire at the sudden intrusion; that was the only reason they were still alive.

Wallace brought his railgun up and sighted another Nod soldier who was drawing a bead on him, and discharged the weapon straight into the shooter's chest. On the thermals, he saw the Nod soldier simply fly apart.

Another scattering of laser fire flashed up the passage as the Nod troops brought their weapons up and properly aimed, and the lasers drilled into Wallace's armor. There was a sudden gasp of pain as one of the beams penetrated - weakened enough by the armor so that it only burned instead of hitting with enough energy to flash-fry his organs. Another barrage like that would kill him, and he knew he wouldn't be able to take them down fast enough with the railgun.

Thus, the Zone Trooper engaged his thrusters, and an instant later plowed straight into the Nod troops, smashing and hurling them aside like bowling pins. He crushed one soldier outright, another was slammed against the wall and dazed, and the last trooper stumbled backward, spun around by the impact. Wallace himself caromed hard off the wall and hit the floor of the pipe in a heap of battered, burnt powered armor. Corporal Whoever surged forward and smashed the stunned soldier to the ground, and then finished off the last one with a quick railgun shot.

"Captain?" he asked as Wallace clambered to his feet, shaking his head.

"I'm alive," Wallace said, and chuckled. "That was a close one."

"Sir," the Corporal said. "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing a month in nanosurgery won't heal," the officer replied. He glanced down at the Nod soldiers, switching to optical view, and activated the suit's built-in lamp. "Huh."

The Nod troops - what was left of them - weren't clad in the typical uniform of Nod militia, which was to say the chaotic mish-mash of fatigues, guns, and entirely optional armor, helmets, and goggles typical of Brotherhood light infantry. They wore roughly similar black and gray fatigues, and standardized armor, kit, and helmets with integrated optics and facemasks. And most importantly of all, they all bore laser rifles.

"These aren't cannon fodder militia," Wallace said, curious. "And what the hell are they doing in these pipes?"

"Sir?" Corporal I-Don't-Know-Your-Name asked.

Wallace checked his maps, and frowned again. This pipe ran north-south, and the Nod troops looked like they'd been headed north.

"This way, Corporal," Wallace ordered, rising and starting north along the pipe at the speedy lope of a Zone Trooper on the move. The other Trooper fell in behind him.

"Sir, what are we looking for?" the Corporal asked.

"Answers."

Wallace _loved_ being cryptic to the enlisted.

* * *

Two Nod buggies rolled past to the south, neither of them noting the recon team as they slinked along the ridges overlooking the pipes. Colt could hear an intense battle to the south, several kilometers away, but with the exception of the patrol, there was nothing in his sector.

His half-squad advanced, covered in their camo cloaks, continuing to range north through the sand and rocks and heat, sweat running down their faces behind their masks and helmets. The rusty pipes from the old water system criss-crossed beneath them, and met at a hub a few hundred meters to the north.

"Sarge," one of the troopers - PFC Cobb, murmured. He was on point, and he came to a halt. The rest of the team followed suit, and what little bit of visibility they'd had before vanished completely.

"What do you see?" Colt asked, and a moment later his head-up-display flashed to show several familiar-looking shaped, painted a dark brown to match the sand. Flower-like objects three times the height of a man, with long, leaf-like "petals" made of metal and crystal rising over them.

"Disruptor towers," Colt said. "Pack, get the heavy-duty scanners out. Team, spread out twenty meters, we'll advance north about one hundred meters further and set up. I want to see what they're hiding."

The team split apart, activating point to point transceivers, while the Corporal he'd ordered readied the suite of heavy-duty sensors he was carrying. It was the same setup that was mounted in the Pitbulls, but sized for an infantry recon team; after all, recon was useless if it couldn't see through Nod's infamous cloaks.

They continued north for one hundred silent meter, Colt watching for any signs of movement within the field generated by the disruptors. The towers themselves did nothing to conceal the land around them, but Nod soldiers inside, equipped with the right tech, would be invisible to most sensors.

They stopped about four hundred meters from the tower, and the team went prone. Pack set up the sensor array, and Colt patched into its feed. A few seconds later, after the sensors finished powering up, the pipe hub below changed into something else.

Colt's breath caught in his throat.

No fewer than a hundred Nod soldiers were below, judging by the scanner's pings. There were a half-dozen trucks, several armed buggies and motorcycles, and one of the dome-like mobile command-and-control outposts Nod used when setting up forward bases. Maybe a dozen heavily-armored Black Hand troops were visible moving throughout the pipe hub.

In the middle of the hidden outpost were three large flatbed trucks, with a full squad of Nod infantry - equipped with what looked like better gear than usual - standing guard. Colt had Pack zoom in on the trucks, and saw several containers marked with Tiberium hazard symbols, filled with faintly glowing green liquid.

"Pyramid, this is Caprica Two-Six, over," Colt whispered, activating his point-to-point transceiver that would send a secure signal back to Pyramid base.

_"Caprica two-Six, go ahead, over," _Pyramid replied a few seconds later.

"Nod outpost sighted at our position, transmitting sensor data. Be advised, company strength enemy force with light armor and Black Hand units. Appears to be transporting high-value cargo."

About twenty seconds of silence passed, save for a chirp of acknowledgement. Finally, Pyramid returned on the radio.

_"Copy that, Caprica Two-Six. We have your feed. Actual says to stay on station, will advise, over."_

"Copy Pyramid, over."

* * *

"Force strength?" Commander Karrde asked as he finished checking the data transmitted by his recon teams.

"Estimated battalion strength based on numbers and spread," his EVA replied. "Minimum force seven hundred infantry with one hundred armored units."

He stared at the screen, giving orders almost on reflex to the support elements as they rushed up behind the lead element. B Company was now fully engaged; the Wolfhounds were fighting for their lives, unable to disengage quickly without the retreat turning into complete chaos. The Nod forces were spread out in a rough two kilometer semi-circle now, attempting to hem in the tanks and light armor. He noted on the display that they'd brought up laser-equipped vehicles - a couple of squadrons of Scorpions and several beam cannon artillery vehicles, which were sniping at the armored units. They'd suffered about ten percent casualties thus far, and that number was growing as the Nod elements surrounded his own.

But why were they focusing so much force on the forward elements? Surely Nod had to realize that their troops would be better off forming a defensive line in the pipe mazes further east; as it was, hurling them into open combat with his B Company played to GDI's strengths, and the GDI troops had inflicted casualties at a five to one ratio.

What were they thinking?

"ETA on air support?" He asked, walking across the command center. He'd gotten his local air assets mobile, at least; he now had a good UAV feed on the battlefield from multiple drones, which told him that Nod was focusing most of their shoulder-fired and vehicle-mounted missiles on the armor; he didn't see any other anti-air on the feeds.

"Firehawks at seven minutes, Orcas at nine," the EVA responded. He nodded, and began issuing airstrike orders.

"Hold on," he said quietly to B Company, even though he knew they couldn't hear him. "Backup's on the way."

* * *

They had advanced a kilometer up the pipe when Wallace caught a flash of thermals on his sensors, far away. The two Zone Troopers slowed, weapons rising, and continued to advance up the pipe. A few minutes later, the contacts resolved themselves into a large object with lingering heat radiating off it, and a half-dozen small, hot signatures - humans.

They crouched, unmoving, and Wallace zoomed in, switching to his starlight scope. The pipe was dark, but enough ambient light came in from down the pipe that he could make out four figures in the light infantry uniforms he'd noted earlier, standing around a large flatbed truck. The other two figures were large, bulky, with heavy armor and capes dangling from their shoulders.

"Black Hand," he murmured to Corporal Nameless over point-to-point laser.

"Looks that way, sir," the Corporal replied.

They spent another couple of minutes conferring, watching the Hands and their other troops. The light infantry stood around listlessly, looking to be chatting among themselves, while the two Hands were deep in conversation, one making quietly agitated gestures to the other, occasionally gesturing to the truck.

After conferring, Wallace and the Corporal split apart, both of them moving to either side of the pipe, and they went prone - a moderately daunting task in heavy power armor. They let the targeting computers get a lock, and once the computers synched, they squeezed their triggers.

Railguns cracked the air, and unlike gunpowder weapons, they didn't leave a muzzle flash - just a trail of ignited air vapor. Both of the Black hands jerked, one decapitated while the other fell in a jumble of limbs and blood as the round punched through his chest.

The quartet of light infantry jerked in shock at the shots, and immediately raised their weapons and started shooting up the pipe in the Zone Troopers' general direction. Laser beams flashed over the prone GDI soldiers as they lined up their next shots and charged their railguns.

Another pair of shots blew apart two of the Nod troopers, and the remaining pair wised up and spun, running to the truck. One reached the door before Wallace took the man's leg off, and the other was bisected at the waist when the Corporal put a railgun shot through his lower back.

They waited until Wallace finished off the wounded Nod soldier with another shot, and then rose and loped up the pipe toward the parked truck. They swept the outside, making sure there were no surprises, and policed the dropped weapons in case one of the broken bodies "decided to go Black Knight on us," as Wallace said. The Corporal had no idea what he was talking about, and the older officer quietly bemoaned the loss of the classics.

Wallace checked the truck's cab, and found a computer and some paper maps that showed the layout of the pipelines. The Corporal climbed into the back of the truck to check the bed's contents, and let out a yelp of surprise and worry.

"What is it?" Wallace asked, stepping out and climbing up into the bed. "Nuclear?"

"No, sir, worse," the Corporal said, gesturing to the boxes and backing away. "Tib."

Wallace scowled, and cautiously checked the box the Corporal had opened. There were cylindrical containers inside, all marked with the standard green hazard symbol for Tiberium, and clearly designed with the same containment systems used in harvesters and transports - but the containers looked like they contained liquid Tiberium, not solid crystals.

"What the hell?" Wallace asked, checking the other boxes. He saw components for explosives, laser generators and projectors like the kind used in reactors and industrial plants, and what looked like the casing and parts for fuel-air explosives, if he remembered his cross-training at Okinawa right.

What the hell was Nod transporting?

"We need to call Pyramid," Wallace said, stepping back. He pointed to the pipe wall. "Get this wall open. He needs to know."

* * *

"Repeat that, Oracle Actual," Karrde ordered, patching into the platoon radio. "This is Pyramid Actual. You have contact where, over?"

"_Inside the old water pipes, Pyramid," _came the garbled response. _"They've got some kind of . . . vapor bombs. Like fuel air explosives, but they're tiberium. There's other shit here too, no idea what it is, but they look important. They had Black Hand protecting it." _

Karrde blinked, and looked over the map, and a sinking feeling settled in over him. He could see the Nod infantry and armor elements fighting his own recon units, and he knew they needed air support. But as he looked over the map, Karrde understood.

The pipes ran toward Alexandria. Caprica Two-Six had spotted a Nod command post covered by disruptor arrays at one of the pipe hubs along that route.

Karrde realized Nod's plan.

"_Acknowledged Oracle. Withdraw, we are dropping hammer. Get out of there." _He took a sharp breath. _"EVA, prepare air strike orders."_

"Acknowledged, Commander."

He designated the pipes running north toward Alexandria as targets. Kilometer after kilometer of pipes, all north of Oracle's confirmed position, and any of which could have held enemy troops evacuating components from the Nod weapons labs or maneuvering to flank their forces.

"Sort and send," Karrde ordered.

"Targets marked and transmitted, Commander," the EVA replied.

Karrde barely heard the AI's response. Instead, he turned toward the main screen, showing his troops fighting and dying, battling to survive against a Nod force that he knew was attacking so violently because they were trying to draw GDI air support onto them. They wanted the Firehawks bombing _them_, not the Tiberium weapons components being evacuated.

He remembered Colonel Havoc's comments on how a commander needed to be inhuman. He kept those words in his mind as he watched his troops fighting and dying, and as he tuned into their radio channels, he heard the frantic calls for fire support.

Bile rose up in Karrde's throat.

* * *

Laser beams were slashing back and forth across B Company's position. From their position in the rear, Hershey's squad couldn't see things as well, but the Nod forces kept coming on, and were circling tot he north and the south. The Pitbull's missile magazine was half depleted; likewise for their mortars. Even with carefully picking their targets, they were running through ammo faster than Hershey liked.

A priority target flashed on his screen, showing a Scorpion two-hundred meters away - practically knife-fight range for the Pitbull. Hershey locked on and sent two missiles roaring away from the launchers.

The world flipped over, and Hershey felt a sickening vertigo as everything started spinning, and heat blossomed from somewhere behind him.

Then there was force, swift and brutal, and darkness for an instant. He blinked and opened his eyes, seeing a thick brown smudge around him that some part of his brain distantly told him was flying sand.

Hands scrabbled at him, and Hershey felt himself being pulled from his seat. He blinked and looked around, to see the blood-splattered interior of his Pitbull. He saw someone's left hand hanging over the side of the seat, and then realized the Pitbull was lying on its side. Burnt metal seared the air with a stench that mixed with cooked meat.

"Sarge!" Peterson yelled distantly, and arms lifted him up. Hershey staggered, shook his head, and straightened. Disorientation hammered at his face and temples for an instant, and then he was back on his feet.

The Pitbull was burning, and the rear half had been blown to shreds. He could see two bodies collapsed in the back - Willik and Bartilucci. Hershey crouched, and glanced at Peterson. The Corporal's helmet had been knocked loose, and he had a carbine in hand. The thunder of impacting shells shook the sand on either side of them, but no one was directing fire at the mission-killed vehicle.

It took only a moment's glance to confirm both of his squadmates were dead; Willik was missing the lower half of his body, and Bartilucci had been decapitated by the explosion. Hershey paused only to grab his carbine, and dropped down beside Peterson, who was spitting out curses like a religious mantra, sweeping his weapon back and forth.

"APC team, over there," Hershey said, spotting a parked Guardian behind a sand dune fifty meters to their south. "I'm on point, get behind me."

Peterson nodded, and they rose into a low crouch and began running across the open sand, praying no unlucky shots fell too close.

* * *

Choking sand was rising up from all the explosions and fire. Treads, wheels, shells, missiles, grenades, laser beams, and small arms fire were sending up enough sand to completely obscure everything, forcing them to rely on thermals.

Corporal Winters kept up the steady stream of grenade shots, relying on his HUD to give him targeting data. Between them, he guessed Echo had accounted for nearly fifty infantry and a couple of vehicles, a good tally for a single grenadier team. The heavy thunder of the Guardian's autocannons sounded somewhere to his left, and he heard the crack of firing railguns to the right, probably an upgraded Predator.

A laser beam slashed past a dozen meters to his left, and he heard screaming. Cale glanced over and saw one of the riflemen rolling over, part of his shoulder armor melted by the passing beam. It hadn't hit him, but the heat from its passage had nearly fried him regardless. The grenadier rose and scrambled over to the injured man, yelling for a medic over the radio.

He caught movement on his display, blobs of white heat, and he spun, shouldering his launcher. He sharpened the resolution, and saw Nod infantry advancing, maybe a dozen men in matching armor and helmets, charging under the cover of the roiling sand plumes.

Cale sighted and fired, dropping a frag grenade into the middle of the loose formation. Three men were blown apart, becoming expanding flowers of white heat-blobs and splattering liquid. He shifted aim and walked the fire down the enemy squad. Two more were killed, white-hot blood spilling across the dunes, and a third grenade killed three. Return fire whipped past him as they spotted Cale, but he simply went prone, grenade launcher thumping against his shoulder, ignoring the incoming fire.

He heard the burned man screaming, and thought he could hear a medic approaching, but in the chaos, he couldn't tell. Instead, he kept up the fire, calmly dispatching the rest of the Nod soldiers from his prone position. The survivors began to retreat, and Cale shifted aim to another group.

It was a hailstorm of thermal contacts rushing across the desert, under the back-and-forth exchange of vehicle fire. The screams came again, and now he heard another voice, definitely a medic. He grit his teeth and held his position, finding another group of Nod soldiers. His hands slid over the launcher, extracting the expended drum and loading a fresh one in.

The weapon beat a rhythm on his shoulder-plates as he kept the dying man and the medic safe.

* * *

"Multiple Scorpions dead ahea-" Jess Howell yelled, before an impact shook the Predator so hard it was spun sideways.

"Thermals out!" Fett roared.

"Bring it around, switch to optical!" she yelled in response. "Keep us moving, damn it!"

"Optics on. Jesus, can't see shit!"

The tank shuddered again. Something skipped off the hull.

"Target Scorpion, One twenty meters, nine point three left, two point one down!"

"Got it!"

The Predator thundered, and then slewed sideways as something else smashed into it. Smoke was rising from somewhere.

"Direct hit!" Howell yelled. She wiped her face, checking the feed again. "Scorpion, One seventy meters, nine point one ri-"

_Goldeneye_ jerked again, and Howell was shoved back into her seat. Stars danced before her vision, and she heard someone yell her name. She blinked, and tried reaching for the optics again, but her fingers slipped off the scope. It took her a second to realize they were slick with blood, blood that had splattered all around the interior of the tank.

"Who's hit?" she gasped, sitting up.

"Major, don't move!" Fett shouted, and she was just about to say something about giving her orders when she realized the blood was _hers_.

"Oh," she murmured. "Well . . . damn."

Noise rose up like the sea, and everything went blank.

* * *

The desert screamed by below as the eight Firehawks of Talon Squadron hurtled over the sands.

"Gabriel, confirm targets," Colonel Victor Hagen said, watching the display tick down to time of release.

"_**Pyramid EVA confirms target coordinates. Again, sir."**_

Hagen frowned. EAAs sometimes gave lip when they hadn't been properly wiped; something about the networking between aircraft, especially after new aircraft were brought in to an established squadron. He'd check it out later. For now, the Firehawks had targets.

This was a straightforward bombing run. For half of the flight out they'd been preparing to deliver type three air cover over the battlefield, but the Commander had switched targets for their ground-strike munitions. The thousand-pound bombs and CBU-1007s would work just as well on old water pipes as they would on armor.

"One minute out," Hagen said, and opened the radio channel. "Talons, break at thirty seconds and advance to respective targets."

He received acknowledgements. Only a couple of the Talons he was flying with were still part of the squad he'd flown over DC. Training squads, reactivated units, or reconstituted units needing experienced officers had cannibalized the survivors. Part of the reason he had some many factory-new Firehawks in his squadron, and part of the reason Gabriel was being uppity.

He checked the radar, showing the other two squads assigned to this run: Highland and Lancer. The twenty-four Firehawks were tasked with systematically blowing the hell out of the network of old water pipes leading to the north, with emphasis on the big ones that could hide vehicles. He didn't know why Pyramid had changed the orders, but he didn't care much. Airstrike orders changed constantly.

"Thirty seconds," Gabriel reported, and the twenty-four 'Hawks began to spread out, each acquiring their targets. He stilled his breath, counted down, and highlighted his targets, setting the weapons for release.

The timers counted down to zero, and thumbed the fire button. The 'Hawk vibrated faintly as the ground-strike munitions were released.

Hagen maneuvered and continued dropping bombs until he'd released his entire payload. The process took all of a second, and as he banked around to return to the airfield, he had a good look at the ground below. He swung around, and saw ribbons of flame and debris rising as the missiles hit their targets, and rivers of white phosphorous as the Jerichos detonated.

White light filled the air for an instant, and he flinched.

"Holy shit," he whispered.

They'd hit something down there - something big. As the light faded, he saw a cloud of dust and smoke rising up into the air, a smoky column emerging from somewhere along the pipeline route. It reminded him of footage he'd seen of deep-penetrating weapons - nuclear-tipped ones, but smaller.

What the hell had they just blown up down there?

* * *

He got down to his last drum magazine when he realized the noise was slackening. Cale looked up from the sheltered position he had taken beside one of the Guardians, and saw the white blobs of Nod tanks and troops backing off, the armor reversing in place while the infantry began orderly phased withdrawals.

Seconds later, thunder and lightning erupted from behind him.

Spread in a wide line two kilometers across, two companies of Predator tanks rumbled across the desert, railguns cracking. Overhead, he could hear the hissing _whip-whip _of Hammerhead gunships, followed by the roar of Orca engines. Tanks rolled past him on both sides, shattering the air with their guns.

The Nod troops began to withdraw, driven before the armored advance. Missiles swept down from the swooping Orcas while the Hammerheads swept their heavy guns across the dunes and sent scything autocannon fire into the sands.

Cale rose, shaking his head, and hurried across the dune, checking on his squad and looking for any more wounded. He passed several still forms, and saw burning GDI vehicles across the dunes and pipes, smoke clawing up into the blue skies.

What had taken them so damned long?

* * *

Karrde watched the post-action clean-up and sweep in silence.

Hammerhead gunships criss-crossed over the map display, deploying recon teams to sweep the remains of the pipe system. Pitbull patrols and APCs loaded with Zone Troopers and engineers were combing the outposts and checking bodies for any useful intelligence. The armored advance had stopped after driving the Nod forces away from what was left of B Company's Wolfhounds, and was waiting for the Mammoths and Juggernauts to arrive before pushing deeper east. The Nod troops themselves had melted into the desert, disappearing under disruptor cover.

The InOps postmortem confirmed suspicions. The Nod soldiers encountered in the desert had been better-equipped than the chaotically-armed militia they'd fielded worldwide in the initial assault. Standardized gear and armor, all around - not quite up to GDI standards, but superior to what they'd been facing before. Coupled with both the aggressive discipline of the assault and retreat and the presence of the Black Hand, and it was enough to get Karrde thinking.

The Nod troops had assaulted his lead elements to draw attention away from the pipelines and whatever they had been transporting. Whatever it was had been important enough that Black Hands and better-than average Nod soldiers had been assigned to guard it. And they'd hit _something_ high energy.

He'd asked EVA to give him an estimate on the number of casualties that had been taken by B Company in the time it took the armored reinforcements and Hammerheads to arrive. The AI couldn't give him specifics, but guessed at roughly a hundred casualties.

One hundred additional dead, in exchange for stopping Nod from getting whatever it was out of the area. A small price to pay.

It still churned in his gut, regardless of the cold logic.

Six hours after the battle ended, a Hammerhead transport returned to Pyramid Base, carrying the recovered components Oracle had found in the pipes. It came in with an Orca escort and landed at one of the out pads, under heavy guard. Two platoons of infantry and a dozen armored vehicles, including a pair of Mammoth-27s, were on guard, and Karrde went out with an escort and an engineering detail to meet the helicopter.

The Hammerhead descended, and he watched from the edge of the helipad. It touched down a few moments later, and a quartet of Zone Troopers stepped off the chopper. One was battered and damaged, covered in burns and impact marks from small-arms and shrapnel. The armored figures hefted and carried large boxes between them as they clambered off the helicopter.

The rotors slowed to a halt, and his engineering detail hurried out with carts to take the equipment. Karrde followed.

"Captain Wallace," he called as the engineers and Troopers set the containers and boxes on the carts and carefully secured them. He could see the Tiberium warning symbols on the sides.

"Commander," Wallace replied, saluting. Karrde returned the gesture.

"Is this all of it?"

"Yes sir," the Zone Trooper replied. "I think we know what happened to the Tiberium out here."

Karrde nodded grimly.

"Good work, Captain," he said, and walked with the engineers. "Whatever this is, they wanted it protected and hidden. You may have made a critical difference today."

"Thank you, sir," Wallace said.

Karrde followed the engineers looking over the components as they carted them into secured storage. Whatever it was Nod had been developing out here, this was the key to figuring it out.

He just hoped the lives he'd spent today had been worth it.

* * *

The brown smear spread out before them, a sandstorm rising up to block all view.

Except for Corporal Pack's heavy-duty sensors.

Sergeant Colt lay in the sand on the ridgeline overlooking the flat valley below, and reached for his radio. They were seventeen kilometers north of and twenty-six hours after the battle that had mauled B Company.

"Pyramid, Caprica Two-Six, he said, peering through the feed. "Be advised, we've traced the components. En route on highway north. Direction places destination at high probability to Alexandria, over."

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**This chapter took me a while, mostly because it was action intensive and grew way bigger than I had planned. But that's the story behind this story in a nutshell.

I've decided to mix up the presentation this time. Act II will alternate between Nod and GDI perspectives per chapter; next chapter will be a Nod-centric one, following Rawne in Brazil. The GDI chapters are generally straightforward combat, while Nod will be more focused on intrigue, as befits the Brotherhood's tendency toward deception and internal conflict.

Until next chapter . . . .


	22. Chapter XXI: Crystalline

_Tiberium infestation is one of the worst ways a person can die. Academic understanding of the conversion process doesn't prepare one for the pain of crystals erupting throughout the body like bladed cancer, twisting your organs into rigid shapes that cut and tear through the rest of your body, spreading the infection until you suffocate to death on crystal-infested blood._

_Contrary to popular belief, the tiberium infusion process was not developed to create super soldiers. It was developed simply because carbon-based life is not compatible with tiberium ecology, and there's no way for the human species to survive the inevitable conversion of our biosphere. We developed the process for survival, first and foremost. Unlike some, we saw the inevitable, and we did not try to fight it. Instead, we embraced it._

_-Dr. Anton Bronstein, Brotherhood of Nod tiberium biochemist_

* * *

_**Chapter XXI: Crystalline**_

The two buggies hissed to a halt beside the parked tiberium harvester. Specialist Arcoles Marisol clambered out of the buggy as the maintenance truck trundled up behind him. He glanced down at the HUD inside his helmet, double-checking the seals on his suit. Beside him, one of the security troops climbed out, wearing more sensible fatigues and goggles. Marisol saw a glittering tattoo on the inside of the trooper's neck, a stylized scorpion tail that ran from the base of his jaw and down underneath the neckline of his fatigues.

The squad of men assigned to security for the maintenance team fanned out around the disabled harvester while Marisol and the two other technicians got their gear unloaded from the truck. The maintenance drone mounted on the rear of the truck started up, engine whirring.

Marisol turned to peer over the landscape while his subordinates unloaded their gear. Kilometers of dry, barren woodlands stretched out in all directions around the river basin. Long ago, the region had been a thick, verdant rain forest supplied by constant downpours and the countless fingers of the Amazon River. But before Marisol had even been born, the jungle had started to die out, until today. Now the only signs that the forest had ever existed were the bleached bones of some of the bigger animals that lived there, and the dry, cracked bark of millions of dead trees, their wood too rotted or old to be used to build anymore.

In the distance, maybe half a kilometer away, he could hear the grinding of several other harvesters as they roamed through the tiberium field that dominated this part of the basin. The field was an old eruption, maybe two years, and covered most of this shallow dip along the old river bed. It was one of two fields that had been tapped to supply the main base to the south, a few kilometers away.

Marisol turned his eyes northwest, toward the wide field that the half-dozen harvesters of the current fleet were gathering from. The vehicles were large, about four meters tall and five long, with big boxy rear sections where the harvested tiberium was stored. The front end, where the pilot sat secure behind a bubble-shaped armor-glass canopy, was pointed so as to allow the pilot the maneuver through the rough terrain of a crystal field. They drove through the healthy green basin of glittering, jagged crystals, pausing once they'd found the thickest and richest concentrations, and deploying the harvesting tendrils on the rear of the vehicle. The devices emerged like clawed limbs, driving down into the tiberium crystals and pulverizing them with rapid strikes, then scooping them into the storage beds in the back of the vehicle where other impactors would rapidly crush the tiberium down into a sand-like powder that could be swiftly processed by the refineries. Once the beds were full, they'd turn and carry the crystals to the refinery stations a kilometer south of the field, where the crystal would be processed and convoy trucks would carry it via underground tunnels to the main base for the fabricators.

This harvester had reported mechanical issues a couple of hours ago, the pilot having pulled it out of the crystal field and shutting it down. Some kind of fault in the harvesting mechanisms, behind the extraction tendrils. That was distressingly common, mostly because of the infectious nature of the crystal. Tiberium shards could embed themselves inside a harvester's mechanisms and foul up the gear very quickly. Harvesters had internal shutdown mechanisms if that happened, which was likely what caused this breakdown.

"How long do you think we'll be out here?" asked Specialist Torono, lugging the heavy kit on his back.

"Depends on how bad it is," Marisol replied as they strode over to the disabled harvester. "Worst-case scenario, we can't fix it here and will have to tow it back."

"We should be so lucky," Torono muttered. They moved up to the harvester, Marisol searching for and finding the catch..

"Brace yourself," Marisol said, and the two tech specialists next to him nodded. He put his hand on the harvester's flank, sliding his fingers into the groove containing the catch to open the panel, and squeezed. He felt the device give way, a subtle click mixed in with the vibrating metal, and he leveraged the panel open. The whisper of the harvester's carefully-muffled engines turned into a deep whirring sound, in spite of the fact that all of the machinery was shut down. The vibrators inside the vehicle were designed to knock loose tiberium dust that got inside the vehicle, preventing it from being infected, though the name given to the tech was annoyingly suggestive. On the other side of the opening panel door, the two technicians - clad in full-body jumpsuits and NBCT gear like Marisol - leaned back as a bit of tiberium dust drifted out.

They waited for the air to clear, and then moved in to assess the broken-down harvester's engines. Overhead, he heard the high-pitched whine of drone engines as the repair bot worked on the top of the broken-down harvester. Marisol took the lead, clambering inside the interior of the harvester. His helmet and wrist-mounted lights played over the maze of pumps, mechanisms, and carefully-protected wiring inside the harvester. He turned, checking his suit's sensors. Behind him, he could hear Torono stepping inside.

"Crystal storage is nearly full," the technician reported. Marisol frowned. The pilot should have flushed the storage tanks the moment he realized he had a serious mechanical problem. Keeping crushed tiberium powder inside the tanks for prolonged periods was risky; the tanks were treated to make them resistant to infection, but that didn't make them immune to contamination. Harvesters flushed their tanks at refineries or storage silos at the earliest possible opportunity.

"Okay, take it easy and check the impactors," Marisol ordered, and he looked over the tanks. Outside, he could hear the third specialist clambering over the hull.

"Boss," he called down. "Got shrapnel damage and bullet holes on the outside of this thing."

"That's why he didn't flush," Torono said with a grunt. "He was getting shot at. Good job telling us that GDI had snipers or rocket troopers out here."

"Doesn't matter," Marisol said. "Pilot's supposed to flush his tanks on mechanical failure. Standard procedure." He brought up the harvester's internal computer on his HUD and accessed the pressure readings on the tanks. One through Four were filled to capacity, and Five and Six were about seventy percent full each. That was close to a ton of tiberium dust.

"Ah, well," Torono said, sighing. "Impactor's all fouled up. Got crystal growing all over the mechanisms. This thing's going to need to be junked and replaced."

"Alright then," Marisol said. "We'll flush these tanks. Orsino, tell the guards to get clear, we'll follow 'em and then dump the-"

He paused as he looked over the pressure readings from the tanks. Pressure had built up in One and Three well past safety guidelines. Admittedly, those were loose where the Brotherhood was concerned. Even so, pressure in the tanks would only exceed safety guidelines if-

The bottom fell out of Marisol's stomach.

If the tanks were close to rupturing due to tiberium contamination.

"Torono," Marisol said, keeping his voice low, even, and authoritative. "Get outside, right now."

To his credit, Torono didn't hesitate. Marisol heard the man start scrambling away from the impactors and toward the open access way. Marisol felt him pass behind him, and started to edge backwards, his heart suddenly pounding away a drum set.

"What's wrong, Boss?"

"The tanks are contaminated," he said, backing toward the door. He was nearly outside. Just two more steps-

Tank Three ruptured.

Just over one hundred and sixty kilograms of powdered tiberium blasted out of a sudden rent in the tank at speeds comparable to railgun fire. Marisol wasn't directly in the line of the rupture; otherwise he would have been killed instantly as millions of razor-sharp tiberium crystals tore through his suit.

If he had, he would have been lucky.

The rupture passed over his left arm and shoulder as he twisted away from the explosion. The tiberium sliced through his suit's carapace, thousands of shards cutting into the fabric beneath and slicing into his arm and shoulder, tearing out scoops of flesh and burying themselves into his bones. Agony rolled up his body, and tiberium dust spread over his torso.

Marisol stumbled out of the harvester, his arm erupting into burning agony, and he felt particles of the dust flying up through his nostrils as he inhaled and gasped.

He felt hands grabbing him, pulling him to the ground, and heard Torono yelling frantically over the radio.

"Medic!" he shouted. "Man down! We need a medic out here! Crystal infection! Repeat, man down with crystal infection!"

* * *

Commander Logan Rawne stepped off the aircraft onto the tarmac, baking with the heat of the tropical South American sun. He squinted into the harsh, bright light, which was a dramatic departure from the dim red light inside the transport plane, and took a few steps across the runway. In the distance, he saw the dilapidated towers of what was a few decades ago the bustling city of Rio de Janeiro, which he had conquered for Nod decades prior.

Well, LEGION had conquered it for Nod. He'd just led the men that bled and died on the ground.

Rawne walked forward across the tarmac to the waiting convoy of vehicles, including the armored transport that would carry him. His bodyguard formed up around him, and he considered himself lucky that he wasn't wearing the heavy black and red armor they donned. Behind him, he could hear the rest of the group he'd arrived with dismounting from the plane. Rawne turned and saw Jose stepping off the plane, clad in full armor, and wished he had the Black hand's internally-controlled climate settings. Behind him walked Ajay, moving with a confident saunter that probably had a lot to do with the heavy rifle he had strapped to his back.

"Well," Rawne said to his friends as they descended to follow him. He held his arms out like a tour guide, grinning. "Welcome to the sunny, tropical wasteland that is Brazil."

Naturally, that was when the explosions started.

A shuddering detonation shattered the tarmac forty meters away, which was close enough to send everyone except Jose stumbling. Rawne hit the tarmac and stayed flat, and a moment later he could feel the shadow of one of his bodyguards, followed by the weight of a full-grown man plus armor fall on top of him as the bodyguard shielded him from the blast. His hearing went deaf for a couple of seconds, and he felt the tremors of other explosions elsewhere along the airfield as violent vibrations that pounded into his body. His hearing gradually returned, first heralded by that familiar ringing sensation, and then the distant yells and cries of troops drifting into his mind.

"Artillery!" yelled someone nearby. Rawne scowled as he clambered to his feet, assisted by the bodyguard on top of him, who turned out to be Sergeant Marona.

_Of course it was fucking artillery, you idiot_, he thought. They had air cover and SAM sites in a seventeen kilometer perimeter around the airfield and the surrounding facilities in Rio. The only way to bombard them here, in the pattern they were being hit in, was either with orbital weaponry, shockwave warhead missiles, or artillery.

He heard counter-battery fire in the distance as nearby Spectres were fed the incoming trajectory from the GDI artillery. Aircraft screamed by overhead, the Venoms running CAP swinging out to attack the guns.

Marona yelled something to him, barely audible over another detonation, and pushed him toward the waiting transports. He agreed with her inaudible orders, and started running for the transports. Another artillery shell exploded about sixty meters away, dead center in the middle of a surface hangar. The detonation sent shockwaves through the ground, staggering Rawne, and chunks of ragged debris were sent flying.

GDI was targeting the airfield with sonic artillery shells, he realized. This was an anti-materiel bombardment intended to destroy aircraft and structures. Anti-personnel shells would be detonating in airbursts and hurling shrapnel over two to three hundred meters, while the sonic shells would be far more effective on vehicles and buildings. They were damned lucky.

Of course, that meant that if they were hit while in the transports, they'd be dead before they heard it. Well, that risk of instant death was what made life interesting.

Rawne reached the transport - an uparmored version of the standard assault buggy - and ducked inside. Marona piled in behind him, and the rest of his bodyguard, along with Jose and Ajay, clambered into the other vehicles, and before they'd even secured the door the transports were moving.

Rawne's hands flicked over his wrist computer, and he opened up a holographic display into the local battlescape. He patched in his Commander authorization, and a map of the region appeared, with markers for the Nod units operating in the region. There was a huge flood of data coming in, an overwhelming storm of information as EVA units picked out and reported contacts, individual soldiers and vehicles, and plotted incoming and outgoing fire and aircraft. He condensed the markers down to platoon level and higher, broke down the display into a surface and aerial overlay, and reduced the scope down to a thirty kilometer radius around his current position.

He almost wished he hadn't.

"Would someone tell me why we weren't notified that an entire goddamn division was attacking Rio?" he muttered under his breath. Apparently, in a time where AI monitoring and wireless communications were ubiquitous, proper communication was still a matter of who had the least idiotic staff handling comms.

He managed to get a handle on his anger after a few seconds. The tall, partially dilapidated buildings of the outskirts of the city began to pass, and he could hear the hiss and rumble of Nod vehicles. Overhead, a squadron of Venoms jetted past. There was another explosion about half a kilometer away as an artillery round fell short.

Rawne focused on the screen, picking out the GDI elements operating north of the city. From the information Nod's surveillance elements were receiving, the majority of the GDI forces (the 43rd Mechanized Infantry supported by two armored brigades, the reports were saying) were about sixty kilometers north of the city, with leading elements entering the ruined suburbs and fighting the Brotherhood's own pickets and light recon elements. An armored company supported by Juggernauts was operating inside the suburbs with a battalion of mechanized infantry as a screening and security element. GDI air units were engaging Nod air cover over the suburbs as well. Infantry and light armor from Nod's own 7th Infantry and 23rd and 41st Armored Brigades were moving to counter.

His annoyance subsided. They'd known GDI was in the area and was launching a push with two corps-strength forces in Brazil, but this sudden armored spearhead with artillery support was unexpected. There had been continuous low-intensity fighting in the suburbs for the last few weeks, but nothing this sudden and serious. There were also scattered reports of GDI recon elements deeper in the city. However, he could see the opening moves of an armored push deeper into the suburbs and eventually the city - light infantry elements securing bridges and roads into the city, engineers clearing approaches for armor, aircraft striking at hard points, and, of course, artillery cratering the airfields and targeting the docking towers to cripple Brotherhood air operations.

"This city isn't safe," Sergeant Marona said, and he grunted, holding back a cynical retort.

"Agreed," he said, and evaluated the relative force strengths. The numbers looked ugly. "GDI will take the city in-" he ran the numbers "-six days, minimum."

"The Brotherhood won't allow them," she said. "Not without a fight."

"Agreed," he repeated. "But the numbers don't lie. They outnumber us and outgun us. Our best hope is that the 7th Infantry can hold the city until we've finished our job here."

She nodded, and he could see the anger in her posture as she stared out the window. The kid was tough but aggressive and didn't like losing. Any implication that GDI was better than the Brotherhood pissed Mari off.

"Settle down and keep your eyes open, Sergeant," Rawne ordered, his eyes locked on the display. The buggy bumped a few times.

"Yes sir," she replied, shifting in place and keeping her head and weapon turned outwards.

* * *

"Crisis One-Three, this is Dagger Two-Seven. Have eyes on probable HVT moving through the city, grid square five-seven, moving northwest from the airfield. Convoy, six vehicles. Three raiders, three bikes, over."

"_Copy Two-Seven, this is Crisis One-Three. Interrogative, do you have a shot, over?"_

Dagger-Two Seven, which consisted of Corporal Juan Evagelisti and Sergeant Daniel Hammond, remained hunkered down on the rooftop of the seven-story building west of the airfield. The only sign they were there beneath their ghillie suits was the very, very slight movement of Evangelisti's rifle and Hammond's scope.

"Negative, Crisis One-Three. We do not have a shot, over."

"_Copy that Dagger Two-Seven. We have your feed. Airstrike inbound. Retain sight on target and provide BDA, over."_

"Acknowledged, Crisis One-Three, over."

* * *

Rawne saw the pair of Orcas on his screen three seconds before they turned to target the convoy.

"Lead vehicle, left now!" he barked into the radio, not having time to check the callsign for his lead vehicle. He highlighted the Orcas. "Escort, incoming aircraft! Marked!"

The driver wasn't dumb enough to ask questions. He swerved to the left, swinging around an intersection, and a heartbeat later he could hear the roar of launching missiles on either side of the convoy. The escort bikes were firing their weapons up into the sky as the convoy bumped and jostled over debris, swinging around onto a new heading.

Orca-fired rockets rained down around them, a shower of fire and smoke that hissed for an instant before turning into a ear-shattering drumbeat of noise and flying shrapnel. Intermixed with the Orcas' fire were the faster, lighter missiles being launched from the escort bikes, arcing up into the air and exploding in the sky.

Rawne checked his readouts, patching into the sensors from the escorts, and saw the Orcas break off while the bikes burned through their missile racks. One of the GDI aircraft wheeled and started spewing smoke, before the rear half of the aircraft suddenly tore free. The Orca tumbled down out of the sky, the rear half disintegrating into raining chunks of metal, while the forward half slammed into the third story of an old office building and tumbled sideways in a shower of metal, glass, and brick.

Then, there was silence, chased by beating hearts and rumbling engines.

"_Commander?" _called Ajay over the radio. _"Hey, Commander, you all right?"_

"Yeah," Rawne replied. "We're okay." He checked the feeds. "Everyone's okay."

"_Damn lucky," _the intelligence officer called, and Rawne could hear a faintly exhilarated laugh in his voice. _"Fucking Orcas. Where's our air cover?"_

"I'm fixing that now," Rawne said with a growl, checking for Venoms they could re-task to protect the convoy.

It was a little thing. A momentary lapse in judgment. He had not arranged air cover for the convoy, convinced that just because he was in Nod territory that he was safe - and they'd nearly become another BDA for GDI sniper-spotters. Just like when he'd been raiding the airfield in B-2. One small error, and his career would be in as many pieces as his body.

"Keep the convoy moving," he ordered as he hammered commands into the Comcom. They needed to get out of the city, get to that Black Hand base housing the lab, and protect whatever it was that Kane was preparing.

* * *

The air was oppressively hot. Though a periodic breeze passed through the old shanty town, bringing a bit of relief from the still and oppressive heat, only an idiot would welcome it. The soft, loose soil of the Amazon wasteland was picked up and carried by the slightest breeze, choking anyone caught in the dusty wind. More importantly, the dust could be carrying microscopic tiberium particles. Standard medical inoculation for Brotherhood members protected against small-scale tiberium infection, but that wasn't a surefire defense, anymore than an armored vest was any certain defense against bullets. And inoculation wouldn't protect equipment from infestation.

Of course, no one particularly cared about the breeze, dust, or microscopic tiberium crystals. There were far more immediate threats in the air.

Bullets punched through the wood a few inches from where Sergeant Justine Marisol crouched. It wasn't directed fire, but rather a burst of stray rounds, but the splintering wood and whizzing bullets were still startling. She dropped into a crouch, the movements quick and precise, and only a whisper of distorted air betrayed her presence as her active camouflage systems compensated for the sudden shift. Behind and around her, the other three members of her Shadow team did the same.

The ramshackle building they crouched behind was one of dozens that made up an old town located three kilometers east of the man Nod facility. Old brick and rotten, dried wood made up most of the structures, their interiors long since stripped of anything vaguely useful. Only the old bones of the structures themselves, too degraded to serve any purpose, and piled refuse too old to be repurposed remained to haunt the dried-up landscape.

No purpose, that was, save for concealment and cover for the soldiers trying desperately to murder each other.

She listened as a machinegun roared nearby, her suit's computers giving her a rough location on her helmet's HUD. Even without it, she could place the shooter at about fifty-to-seventy meters east, putting him inside one of the run-down bunkhouses. That was in the area where GDI troops were pushing into the town, and the distinctive sound of a GDM-20 squad machinegun identified the shooter. The sound was interspersed with lighter rifle fire, as well as the heavier sounds of APC cannon fire and the periodic _thump_-wait-_boom_ of grenade launchers. Countering the din being whipped up by GDI were the whooshing rushes of igniting air and the whine of laser weapons. The heavy pounding of a Predator's cannon sounded, maybe half a kilometer away, followed by the rapid-fire shots of Scorpions, their heavy laser cannons howling.

A GDI mechanized company had blundered in past the outer security perimeter, apparently having been sent to secure this town and the bridge across the river basin, in preparation for a larger advance. Intercepted transmissions indicated that they had no idea the main research facility was right in their path. Recon units (like Marisol's Shadow squad) had been tracking the GDI troops since they'd wiped out a militia patrol at the perimeter, while the Black Hand had scrambled to prepare an ambush in the town. They hadn't had time to perfect the ambush, and what should have wiped out half the interlopers before they'd known they were being attacked turned into an all-out brawl between a hundred and fifty GDI troops and support vehicles and about three hundred Nod soldiers led by a couple of platoons of Black Hand.

Messy.

Once certain that no one else was going to be pouring poorly-aimed fire at her team, Marisol raised a fist and her squad rose. They slid forward, their movements fluid and precise. She only knew this because she couldn't see the rest of her team, their movements matching the preprogrammed active camouflage systems in their suits. They approached the edge of the building, and Marisol moved one of her team forward by highlighting her on the HUD. Corporal McCarthy slid ahead and checked around the corner with an optical-cable, and signaled an all-clear. They advanced around the corner into the alley between two structures one at a time, suppressed rifles and machine pistols hunting for unexpected targets.

Marisol and her team were part of a platoon of Shadows assigned to the facility. Her team, along with another squad, had been following the GDI armored company into the town, and once the ambush had been triggered (and messily failed) they had been ordered to "assist at their own discretion." That was their favorite kind of order; Shadows worked best when given plenty of leeway in how to do their jobs. They'd been hunting GDI squads and picking off their scouts, snipers, and weapons teams ever since.

Gunfire was intensifying ahead, almost all of it conventional. The periodic whine of laser rifles sounded in the distance, but much closer there was only the rumble and pounding of GDI machineguns and grenade launchers. Marisol tracked the sounds down the street, correlated with report from the base EVA unit, and identified a couple of buildings that the GDI troops were using as fire points to support their infantry and APCs as they doggedly fought through the empty old town.

If they had access to Spectres, Marisol would have placed a beacon, marked the target, and called down an artillery strike. Instead, they would have to handle this the old-fashioned way. She gestured her team forward, and they slipped through the alleys and over the refuse piles. Gunfire intensified, and as they rounded a corner, Marisol caught approaching footsteps over the din of the battle. She ordered her team to a halt, and they dropped behind refuse or pressed against the walls.

Voices came around the corner, and a three-man GDI fireteam came around the side of the building a moment afterwards. They swept around the side of the building, checking corners, and advanced down the alley past the Shadows. She could hear their terse, quiet communications as they maneuvered and cleared the alley and the area beyond.

Corporal McCarthy flashed Marisol an inquiry. _Eliminate_?

Marisol flashed a reply. _Negative_. They couldn't guarantee that they could take them down without drawing attention, and the moment this fireteam failed to report in, GDI would know that Nod had gotten troops inside their once-secure perimeter.

The enemy soldiers moved on, and she sent a quick pulse to the local EVA to inform them of enemy contact at their position before moving down the alley. Within a few moments they had to take cover again as another enemy fire team appeared, heading in a different direction.

Once they passed, Marisol frowned, considered for a moment, and then sent the rest of the squad new orders. The others acknowledged, and McCarthy and Coron split off, scaling the low building beside them and clambering onto the rooftop. Their movements were little more than disturbances in the dust, their climbing motions synchronized and mechanical, coupled with tiny scrapes as the climbing claws in their gloves dug into the wood.

Marisol gestured for Corporal Cross to follow her, and he did so as they crept along the alleys. Long moments passed, before McCarthy sent another flash to her. _Sensor post being established ahead. Eliminate?_

Marisol scowled, and bit her lip in thought. It was one of those gestures that she could only get away with inside her helmet, like making rude faces at her superiors. If the GDI troops were able to establish a good sensor rig, they could pick out her squad and any of the other Shadow teams prowling around their positions, but taking them out would alert GDI just as swiftly. Then again, they were going to be alerted once her team got to the enemy fire points, regardless.

_Take them,_ she ordered, and resumed her advance. Several seconds later, McCarthy flashed a confirmation that the enemy was dead.

Enemy fire was growing more intense. On her display, Marisol saw that GDI troops were pushing ahead, clashing with Black Hand elements under the cover of their strongpoints. It was a typical GDI tactic when they encountered heavy resistance: dig in at a fortified position and push against the enemy, drive them back and destroy resistance using heavier firepower, take territory to fortify, and then advance again. It relied on GDI's strengths, but it also relied on secure strongpoints to support the advance and to fall back to if resistance became too stiff. It wasn't very viable if the enemy had long-range strike capability or, in this case, infiltrators.

The nearest strongpoint was a large, four-story bunkhouse or apartment building that now only had two stories and a lot of collapsed debris. As Marisol drew nearer, she could hear and feel the shuddering fire from the heavy support guns rumbling through the soil beneath her feet. She also picked out at least two full squads of infantry and couple of trucks, the former spread throughout the building and the ground around it, while the latter stood behind the shelter of the old walls. The support guns were on the remains of the third floor, heavy .50 caliber machineguns set up on opposite corners of the rooftop. They were updated versions of the Browning model; one hundred and fifty years old but still viable as support guns because no power armor had yet been invented that could resist the sheer trauma of getting hit by the enormous rounds. The structure loomed over the rest of the town, which was mostly one-story buildings, giving the GDI shooters excellent lines of fire.

GDI troops were covering the alleys on either side of the building, and a pair were watching over the trucks and a supply dump in what had once been a small public park behind the apartment building, but had long since decayed. Marisol kept scanning the building, picking out sentries; though most of the GDI troops were on the wall facing the main Nod force, two sentries were on security on either of the rear corners of the building.

Marisol flashed her plan to Cross, who concurred. She slipped into the ammunition dump and took out one of the charges hidden on her belt. The device used an unstable chemical compound based on tiberium reactions, which gave it a significantly greater boost to energy output than traditional composition-four explosives, at the added risk of being slightly more dangerous to handle ("slightly" for someone native to a Yellow Zone, anyway). One charge would be enough to blow both trucks, one wall, and all of the ammunition, as well as the sentries.

Efficiency.

She moved around the stacks of ammunition crates, and paused as one of the guards strode past. Marisol went absolutely still, one hand holding her explosive and the other drawing her machine pistol with steady movements so the cloak could keep up. The GDI trooper walked to within arm's reach of her, then paused. This close, she could see the patterns of his digital camouflage, the interlocking plates of his body armor, unit patch and rank (Private First Class), and the name stenciled onto his chest plate ("Robilio"). He turned slowly, his face hidden behind his goggles and breather mask. Robilio was breathing quietly, fingers opening and closing around his rifle's foregrip.

Marisol watched him as he stood there. He wasn't staring directly at her, but she was in his line of sight, and any movement, no matter how slight, might tip him off. PFC Robilio seemed edgy and on alert, judging by his body language. She tightened her grip on her machine pistol. Killing him would need to be fast and quick, and she might have to resort to the pistol. The bullets would likely penetrate his goggles and make some noise going through, but not much, while knife work would risk him firing his weapon unless she killed him instantly. The sentries pulling security up above would notice him before long, if his friend in the little courtyard didn't do so sooner. She debated on which method to use, and PFC Robilio started walking forward, not quite looking at her, but his path would take him right into Marisol.

_Careful_, she thought, and made up her mind. Killing PFC Robilio now would make too much noise. Holding her breath, she slowly leaned sideways, her gestures careful and smooth, the cloak working to keep up with her movements. She edged out of the GDI soldier's way, one hand slowly dipping and putting her knuckles into the dirty cobblestones; she couldn't drop the charge in her hand or it would suddenly become visible. He kept walking toward her, and she settled her weight partially on that arm and those knuckles. She drew her leg carefully away from the PFC's path, and brought it closer to her body.

PFC Robilio stepped past her, unaware, and she gradually exhaled.

Marisol planted the charge, and signaled Cross. She moved to the nearest corner of the building beneath one of the sentries, and Cross took the other. Then they started up the side of the building, using their climbing claws to hiss and scrape up the structure. They moved swiftly, in synchronization, their motions careful and precise so that the cloaks could keep up and properly hide them until they reached the second floor.

The two Shadows came to a halt an arm's length beneath both sentries. Marisol stilled her breath, detaching one arm from the wall, and flexed her fingers. The climbing claws were sharp and long enough to do the work without needing to rely on blades. She glanced to Cross, flashed a three-second countdown, and tensed.

They went of the top at the same time, in bursts of sudden, violent movement. The cloaks managed to maintain their cover for a couple of seconds as they scrambled up the side of the building, but the watery disturbance in the air literally right in front of their faces was impossible to miss.

Not that it helped them. Marisol's hand lanced forward into the soldier's throat, and the claws dug in as she rose over the side onto the top of the building's collapsed third floor. She was on top of the enemy trooper, batting his weapon aside with her other hand and she dug and twisted and ripped the GDI soldier's throat out. The man twisted and thrashed weakly as she crouched over him, and the sergeant twisted the assault rifle out of his hand before he could pull the trigger. She could hear him gasping through the breath mask, and one hand tried to reach up to his helmet to activate the radio. She caught his arm and pinned it with her claws, and inside the man's helmet she could hear him choking on his own blood. A couple of seconds later, the enemy went still, blood pooling around his body.

Marisol set his weapon aside and felt a faint shiver run through her, along with a tickle in the back of her throat. She'd gotten used to killing in close, but it was always a hideous sight, and she'd never quite gotten past that instinctive human revulsion to killing with one's fingers and watching someone die. Some Shadows could suppress it and weren't affected by up-close murder, but she wasn't among them.

Deep down, she was still human. She _liked _her job, but that didn't trump basic human instinct.

Cross flashed her a signal indicating his sentry was dead, and they moved up.

The GDI weapons squads were divided up into three man teams; a gunner, a loader, and a rifleman for security and spotting. Two more men, likely officers or NCOs, were directing their fire from a laptop and spotter's scope between their positions.

They were the only ones who might notice the Shadows' presence, and thus died first. Two quick silenced bursts while they were distracted spotting and directing fire dealt with them. The weapons' teams were too close together for shooting to be a guaranteed success (there was always the chance one could turn and return fire), and Marisol wanted this to be a noisy declaration to GDI that they weren't safe anyway. Under the pounding cover of their opponents' guns, the Shadows planted their explosives, and quietly departed, unfolding their glider wings from their rear packs and flying away under the cover of their camouflage.

By the time anyone realized the officers or the sentries were dead, Marisol and Cross were on a rooftop a hundred meters away, and McCarthy had reported that she had planted her charges as well.

The next few seconds were filled with the glorious shudder and thunder of simultaneous detonations and the satisfying sight of airborne masonry and rising smoke clouds.

"Now what?" asked McCarthy a few minutes later as she clambered up onto the rooftop to rejoin the squad. It was the first verbal communication they'd had in hours.

"We relax," Marisol replied, sitting down on the rooftop and watching the continuously-updated reports as the Nod troops launched a renewed attack on the unexpectedly weakened GDI positions. She idly flicked through a display from a combat drone showing a team of Black Hand advancing through a wooden building, flamethrowers erupting and washing the structure with fire and smoke, and the GDI soldiers fleeing from the heat and implacable black figures striding toward them.

"We are to engage at our own discretion," she continued, watching Brotherhood troops push back against the enemy and force GDI into a steady withdrawal. "And I'd say we've pulled our weight today."

An hour later, the GDI troops were in full retreat, and the Shadows watched in invisible silence as the enemy were pursued by Nod soldiers through the town. A squad of GDI troops ran past below, calling frantically to one another and shouting over their radios. Sergeant Marisol stared at them for a few seconds before slowly rising and stretching. Her camouflage flickered as she did so. The other Shadows followed suit.

_What happened to pulling our weight for the day? _Cross flashed her across her HUD, and Marisol bit out a short laugh.

_Bored_, she replied, checking her rifle to make sure it was loaded and ready. She dropped off the side of the building, landing lightly on the ground below, and started to follow the GDI troops. The other Shadows followed suit, moving along the road or on rooftops. They understood.

Engaging at one's discretion was no fun if one didn't _engage_, after all.

* * *

The transition from Rio to the outer edges of the Amazon took a lot less time than one would expect. The buggies were fast and fuel-efficient vehicles; Nod needed them to be quick and require minimal logistical support, which was why they were such simple, lightweight vehicles, and development had emphasized speed and efficiency over other considerations, like armor or durability. And once they had escaped the city, there was nothing to slow the buggies down., and they tore across the badlands in excess of a hundred kilometers per hour at the best moments, and at fifty KPH at worst, with only two stops to refuel.

In short, they covered the nine hundred-plus kilometers between Rio and the research base nestled in the Parana river basin in under a day.

The entire experience was one that sent Logan Rawne back to his younger days, when he'd been a Zone runner, carrying packages and messages for the Brotherhood throughout the Yellow Zones, generally moving at similar speeds. The memories of whipping wind, of the deadly dust and weaving amongst the dying forests and the occasional high-speed chase or shoot-out rose back up as he watched the landscape whip past, far too quickly to appreciate. Those memories bid others to come forth, as he'd struggled to survive in the Zone as it collapsed around himself and his family, the cities decaying and the last vestiges of independent government were swallowed up by either GDI or the Brotherhood.

It had been oddly peaceful, somehow, despite the chaos and collapse of civil order. The Yellow Zone was dangerous, incredibly so, even without the cat-and-mouse game played by the two factions. A strong windstorm could hurl tons of jagged, lethal tiberium crystal at anyone who was improperly protected, ion storms could pass over and inflict grievous damage to the landscape, and mutants and mutant animals were everywhere. Yet the quiet of the barren river basin, the humming and whirring of working machinery, the distant grinding of the harvesters, the mournful winds blowing over the dead forest, the period staccato of gunfire, all coupled together to make for a strange sense of serenity.

Rawne hadn't precisely loved it, but it was his home.

Five kilometers out from the general area where the research base was located, the convoy turned down a battered old dirt and asphalt path weaving between dead trees. It had seen better days, having once been paved, and that was before someone had started to litter the road with the corpses of men and tanks. A GDI Predator sat in the middle of the road, cored from front to rear by a laser beam that had slagged its armor and severed its barrel cleanly. The remains of a Nod recon bike littered one stretch of road, a tire here, a chunk of chassis there, the rotted, splattered remains a crewmen resting against a tree further down. In other places, entire swathes of woods were flattened, dead wood crushed beneath treads and gunfire. The smoking remains of forest fires were covered in flame retardant, likely dropped from the air; Nod didn't want the entire dead river basin to go up like kindling.

Rawne ran the numbers as they drove along; the concentration of corpses along the road and the savaged dead forest meant there had obviously been a battle, and recently, but the GDI forces appeared to have been killed while on retreat; if they had been advancing they wouldn't have left so many of their own as they'd fallen.

A short distance down the road, they approached a checkpoint. Two buggies, parked on either side of the road behind dirt berms, and half a dozen men in the dark, mismatched fatigues of Brotherhood militia. Rawne thought he could spot the two missile teams hidden in the woods on either side of the road, as well as the hidden rocket motorcycles whose scanners had likely picked them up well before they got in visual range. That was the only reason why the men at the checkpoint had been visible in the first place; if they had been a GDI force then the militia would have stayed hidden, radioed back about the incoming enemy force, and shadowed them until reinforcements pounded the enemy so they could fall upon their backsides.

"Slow it up," Rawne ordered as they approached the checkpoint. They reduced speed to a relative crawl until they reached the checkpoint itself, and one of the militia strode over to them. Rawne could see he was a sergeant and wore a set of projection goggles, which he was doubtless using to communicate with the main base.

"Identification," he said brusquely, but his movements carried a bit of arrogant authority to them. He was doubtless enjoying the power that controlling a checkpoint gave him.

Rawne frowned, and then tapped two keys on his wrist computer. Two more taps brought up local wireless networks. He identified the one being used by the local base immediately, and isolated the guard in a couple of seconds.

The Commander flashed the man his authorization, complete with encryption key and verification provided by General Qatar.

The militiaman reacted as if slapped. He took a swift step back, and nodded, respect sliding into his body language.

"That's my identification," Rawne replied.

"Sir, I apologize," he said. "I didn't realize it was you. Go on ahead." He paused, and before the driver could hit the gas again, he held up his hand. "Sir, be advised, we've been engaging GDI troops over the last few days. Might be some stragglers or snipers inside the perimeter that we haven't found yet."

"Thank you, Sergeant," Rawne said, and the soldier nodded, saluting.

They passed through the checkpoint, and as Rawne checked the local feeds, he saw the troops were quickly retreating into the woods on either side, becoming invisible once again.

"_Good training," _Ajay said, his face appearing on Rawne's screen. _"Those ain't crap militia."_

"That's what happens when the Black Hand is involved in the training," Rawne replied, and Ajay nodded.

"_Whole facility is Black Hand-controlled," _the intelligence officer said. _"Guess you can't pick anyone better for guarding secret projects." _

"You know anything about what they're doing in there?" Rawne asked, and Ajay snorted.

"_Officially, no," _he replied. _"But I wouldn't be intelligence if I couldn't figure things out on my own."_

"Like?" Rawne asked.

"_Collated data from multiple sources," _Ajay said. _"Scientists being co-opted from other projects. Not obvious, had to do digging around, found some complaints from other research teams. Flights of unmarked cargo, with adjusted weights falling within parameters for specific kinds of components. Position of the base is over a major underground growth of tiberium. Other stuff."_ He shrugged. _"But I can't tell you what's actually going on. If I did, I'd have to kill you."_

Rawne smirked, and Ajay let out a snorting laugh.

"_Kidding," _he said. _"But I really don't know the specifics. Just general information, and I don't make a habit of spreading that knowledge around."_

They passed two more checkpoints over the next few minutes, though these were only apparent because Rawne was patched into the local battlenet, and was able to see where the hidden recon teams were stationed along the road. Fifteen more minutes' travel along the road at far less wild speeds brought them out of the dead woods and into the smoldering ruins of an old town a few kilometers away from the base itself.

"Hell of a fight here," Sergeant Marona said beside him, and Rawne nodded. He consulted recent data traffic, and quickly found a wealth of data recording the skirmish in the town. He made note of a few individuals who had contributed to the battle: a Brother-Corporal Garcia who led a Black Hand unit into a charge against a dug-in GDI squad supported by two APCs, Master Sergeant Blanche who commanded a Scorpion that killed three Predator tanks, and a Sergeant Marisol who led a Shadow team behind enemy lines to sabotage enemy gun positions.

"_Talent search," _Ajay said, and Rawne glanced up from his display. _"What? I saw your queries. Not exactly hidng what you're looking at."_ The intelligence officer grinned at his raised eyebrow. It was notable that Ajay's statement was just that, instead of being a question.

"Always on the lookout for exceptional individuals," Rawne replied. "Good men and women are hard to come by, and good women are interesting for other reasons."

"_Amen to that, Commander," _Ajay said, and Rawne heard Marona mutter something off-handed beside him.

Rawne went back to the display as they bypassed the ruined buildings and the hulks of destroyed tanks and other vehicles. The GDI force that had probed into the town were conducting reconnaissance in force, and reports from their own scouting units indicated a large GDI presence, division strength or greater, approaching and less than two days away.

He ran the numbers in his head. Six days before Rio was overrun, at best. One day's travel time to get here, the same to go back, but likely far slower if they were in convoy. Not all Nod vehicles could move overland as swiftly or as far as the buggies. Estimate two to three days' transit time, another to get the airport and load the components . . . .

"Shit," he whispered, closing his eyes.

They didn't have much time. The base would be overrun soon, based on enemy numbers; he just didn't have the available manpower or resources. Their only hope was an immediate evacuation.

* * *

Sergeant Justine Marisol stared across the medical bay, separated from the sealed chamber by impenetrable armor-glass. Within the room were a pair of doctors in full NBCT gear, and floating in a tank of clear liquid was her brother.

From the left side, he looked fine. Arcoles Marisol looked exactly like he was supposed to, except naked, but his normally smooth, youthful features (young for an engineering specialist on the fast-track of a doctorate in tiberium studies) were locked up in a semi-conscious grimace of agony. Beneath the breath mask he wore, his eyes were closed tight and his teeth were clenched together, and though the doctors assured her he was pumped full of painkillers, he was in clear, obvious torment.

The rampant tiberium infection that had covered his arm and was spreading into his torso had seen to that.

She and her Shadow team had returned to the base after the remaining GDI troops were either retreating, dead, or captured. They'd barely gotten back inside the disruption field before her CO had flashed her the ugly news that her brother had been involved in an accident involving a harvester, and she'd gotten leave to go see him in the base's medical station.

The message hadn't told her that Arcoles was dying from tiberium growth.

She hadn't had a chance to change out of her uniform; hell, she'd barely had the piece of mind to turn off her cloak. So far, all she had done was take off her helmet and sit down, staring at her brother's body as it floated in the isolation tank that was keeping him from spreading crystalline infection throughout the entire base hospital.

Her brother was the only family she'd had. She didn't remember their mother, and their father had been an in-and-out part of her life - sometimes literally, considering half the time she saw him he was visiting the brothel they'd been raised in, and being "family" or "underage" meant nothing to the bastard. Enlisting in the Brotherhood military at a young age had been their only hope of breaking free of that life, but that was nothing unusual in the Yellow Zones, and they'd both excelled, he at academic and technical work and she at recon and survival.

And Arcoles was the only thing she had in her life outside of the military. Seeing him floating there, in clear torment and slipping away, sent horrible chills through her. Justine Marisol didn't feel like an elite, deadly specialist who took lives every day. She felt helpless and scared and uncertain.

There was a cough beside her, and she jolted, adrenaline pumping through her. Her hand went for the sidearm she kept at her side as she turned, but then brought herself to a halt almost as quickly. The dim light in the medical facility, like all Nod installations, had hidden the presence of the doctor as he'd come into the observation room.

"Sergeant Marisol?" he asked, either not noticing that she'd nearly drawn a weapon on him, or not concerned about it. He was a tall, spare man, with blond hair and the coloring of someone from Northern Europe. His nametag read "Doctor Anders."

"Yes, doctor?" she asked. Dr. Anders looked over the data pad, his expression grim. But then, in hospitals in the Yellow Zones, doctors tended to be grim by nature.

"We've finished preliminary examinations of your brother's injuries and infection," he said. "It doesn't look very good right now."

"How bad?" she asked. Her fingers were shaking a bit.

"He suffered a massive exposure to tiberium powder, which accelerated the infection rate far more significantly than most cases of exposure. Seven percent of his body mass has been converted to tiberium, and we suspect twelve percent more is infected but not wholly converted," Anders said. "He had significant infection in his right arm, and growths in his lungs from when he inhaled some of the dust after it ruptured his suit. He can't breathe without assistance.

"We're prepping him for surgery. We're hoping a combination of nanosurgery, sonic treatments, and chemical therapy will contain the infection to the point that we can extract damaged tissue, but there are concerns of particles escaping into his bloodstream and migrating to other parts of his body."

He inhaled slowly.

"There's a twenty percent chance that we can save him," he said.

Marisol closed her eyes, and looked away, a cold, painful block of stone settling into her stomach.

"Any mutation?" she asked quietly, grasping at that bit of hope.

"None that we have seen," Anders replied, his voice carefully neutral. He didn't want to fake compassion, possibly. "We're not showing any signs of aggressive cellular adaptation or integration that would indicate he is mutating to accept the crystal."

She didn't reply, instead looking back down at her shaking hands. There was warmth behind her eyes, but she kept it under control as best she could.

"We'll let you know as soon as we take him into surgery," Dr. Anders continued. "But for now, I would suggest you get some food and rest, Sergeant."

She nodded, slowly, but didn't really feel it. Her eyes tracked up to her brother's barely-conscious body, the drugs the only thing keeping him from contorting in agony as the crystal converted his body, molecule by molecule, into more tiberium.

"Thank you, doctor," Marisol said, and rose to her feet, that numb feeling pervading throughout her body.

* * *

They passed through the defense perimeter of the base after crossing the bridge beyond the ruined town. Rawne only knew this because he was checking the feeds from the base EVA and the positions of the weapons emplacements along the perimeter. He noted overlapping coverage from concealed laser, shredder, and missile turrets, but when he glanced outside the buggy itself, he couldn't see anything.

Then, the barren landscape choked with dead trees, dirt, and ash suddenly changed. One second there had been the leftovers of an ecological collapse, and the next there was a moderate-sized Brotherhood military installation, emerging from the ground like a black, metallic forest. He could see the familiar, standardized structures that made up any such installation: the Hands of Nod that served as barracks and training centers, the familiar humpbacked shape of the primary construction yard, the looming spectre of the primary tiberium refinery, the flat-topped, subterranean fabrication plants, the rounded shapes of the base's power plants, and most importantly the delicate, crystalline flower-like profiles of disruption towers, now visible once they'd passed through their masking fields.

Rawne had seen countless such military bases before, so he went back to reviewing the information regarding the defenses, troop compliment, and available materiel while the convoy passed the outer fences. The guards, already forewarned of their approach, let them pass through with only a cursory check - which meant that someone had been shadowing the convoy the whole way in to make sure that nothing had happened to them between the outer checkpoint and the inner one.

A few minutes later, the convoy came to a halt outside a looming structure that appeared to be the primary lab, attached to the operations center that served as the command hub of any decently-equipped Nod base. He clambered out (after his bodyguard, of course) and as he emerged into the bright Brazilian sun, a pair of Black Hand troops strode toward them from the entryway to the ops center.

"Commander Rawne?" one of them asked, the filtered voice making it difficult to tell which of the power-armored warrior-monks was speaking. He nodded in acknowledgement. "Brother-General Dego wishes to speak with you immediately. Please follow us."

He nodded for them to lead on, and glanced over his shoulder, to see Jose climb out of his vehicle and walk over to them. As the Black Hands headed inside, Rawne and his entire retinue of bodyguards, intelligence officers, and power-armored warrior monks followed suit. The Hands led them inside, past a pair of guard posts and lines of doorways that led to offices and communications rooms until they reached an elevator. As they walked, Rawne pulled up the schematics for the labs and ops center, and noted that General Dego, or whoever else had designed this base, had modified the construction plans. That wasn't too strange, as customization of standard designs was trivially easy with the fabricators the Brotherhood used, but the precise design schematics were troubling.

The command bunker was two levels below the surface. The levels between the bunker and the surface consisted almost entirely of a layered latticework of armored plating. According to the map, the primary labs were underneath the bunker level, with the exterior facility being mostly storage and low-level testing, while higher-level research, testing, and assembly happened in the levels below the command bunker.

_Brilliant_, he thought sourly as he stepped onto the elevator, the rest of the group following him while the two Hands took up guard positions on either side of the doors. _All high-priority targets on the base gathered together in one neat, easy-to destroy package. _Someone clearly considered internal security to be more important than external security.

The elevator came to a halt a few moments later, and Rawne stepped off the lift, his entourage in tow. A pair of guards stood outside the octagonal blast doors that led to the command center itself, the red scorpion tail emblem on the doors gleaming in the dim light. He glanced over the guards, and noted that both of them wore the heavy semi-powered armor of Black Hand acolytes. Typically the guards were armored Brotherhood infantry; these kinds of guards were only common in Black Hand facilities.

He tapped his wrist, and flashed both of the guards his identification as he approached. It showed up in their HUDs, and they stiffened. The man nearest the control console waved a hand over it, and the door slid open as he drew closer.

Rawne strode into the command bunker, and was greeted by the usual plethora of gleaming red and yellow holograms and screens. The command center was circular, with a massive holographic display in the center showing a twenty-by-twenty square kilometer overlay of the landscape around the base. Other, smaller displays and consoles ran the outer length of the chamber, showing feeds and data from elsewhere in the base. Men and women in dark uniforms moved around between the shadows cast by the holograms' light.

Looming over the display was a man in the usual bulky black power armor of the Black Hand, his outfit slightly more ornate and heavier than usual, the only visual indication the Hands gave regarding rank. His features were hard and rough, and he was shaved bald, with flint-colored eyes and a long, vicious burn scar running down his left cheek, over his jaw, and down his neck to disappear beneath his armor's collar. He peered down at the display, and the dim light made his already-solid features seem almost like granite.

"Brother-General Dego?" Rawne asked, and the Hand looked up from the overlays.

"Battle Commander Rawne," Dego replied, nodding, and stepped around the projector. He extended a hand, and Rawne gingerly took it. Dego didn't squeeze, which was good; healing hands broken by power armor was not a difficult procedure with modern nanosurgery, but it still wasn't a pleasant experience. "I have an interface station set up here for you."

Straight to business then, which was fine by Rawne's reckoning.

"Thank you, sir," Rawne replied. After all, the General outranked him and was in overall command of the base and the surrounding area.

"I assume you've been reviewing the situation here," Dego said as they walked around the projector and toward the interface desk where he'd be doing most of his work, and Rawne nodded.

"Here and regionally," Rawne replied.

"I read over the reports on B-2," Dego added, circling around the desk. The cape he wore reflected the light, casting odd flickers around him. "That was good work there, although you'll have to remember that out here, you're only in command of the garrison. I have general authority in this area."

"I understand," Rawne replied. So, Dego was marking his territory, and being blunt about it. Good. Too many Nod officers liked to dance around the subject when it came to power and responsibility. Dego was being honest about it. "General Qatar gave me my orders personally."

"Did she inform you as to what was being researched here?" Dego asked, and he shook his head. "Fair enough. Operational security here is tantamount. That's why the Black Hand are in command here."

Another, less blunt but no less clear, warning as to who was calling the shots around here.

"Brother-General, I've been running the numbers on the larger picture since I arrived," Rawne said, leaning against the desk, and Dego nodded.

"What did you find?" he asked.

"Rio will be overrun in less than five days, and we have GDI forces threatening our position now," the Commander explained. "There are no other usable airbases within the immediate region, or at least none large enough to handle transporting our cargo that haven't been bombed to rubble by Firehawks.

"GDI's probing actions and our scout reports indicate that we'll be discovered and attacked within the next two days, by my reckoning," he continued. "Division-strength enemy force."

"I concur," Brother-General Dego replied, his tone grave. "My men made the same conclusions from the same evidence."

"I don't think we have the manpower to hold this position, and we certainly don't have the time to wait," Rawne continued. "If we're going to evacuate this project with any hope of success, we need to start right away. Load up the equipment and materials immediately and start moving east as fast as possible before GDI takes Rio and cuts us off."

Dego frowned, one massively-gloved hand scratching his chin.

"I've been considering that option, but I didn't know the situation in Rio was so dire," he said, and looked over the holograph display.

"With your permission, I'll get our assets started on-"

"No," Dego said, shaking his head. Rawne blinked.

"Sir?"

"We cannot afford to risk the Messiah's project," Dego said. "The 43rd Infantry is en route, and will arrive in three days. We're better off holding our position until they arrive to relieve us. We can then move the project south or west to another airfield and transport it then."

"Sir, we can't afford to wait for reinforcements," Rawne protested. "GDI will bomb this base flat if they realize we're here, let alone whatever it is we're protecting, and if we wait we won't be able to get to the airbase in Rio before GDI captures or destroys it."

"No," Dego repeated. "We've already faced one probing attack, and GDI will have more armored companies between us and Rio. The convoy will be at extreme risk in transit, and Rio could be taken faster than we estimate. Evacuation is too risky."

"Staying here isn't an option-" Rawne started, but Dego slammed a fist down on the side of the display, sending a massive crack through the room that silenced Rawne instantly. The holograph flickered, and the command center went absolutely quiet.

The Black Hand general glared down at the Commander, his face a controlled mask. There was no anger or frustration there in his features; he'd pounded the display simply to make Rawne be quiet and grab everyone's attention.

"Battle Commander," he said, speaking slowly and enunciating every syllable in Rawne's rank. "Assume command of the garrison and secure this facility. We are holding position until reinforcements arrive."

Rawne stared back at him, clenching his fists, and slowly exhaled.

"Are my orders unclear?" Dego said, the authority in his voice making Rawne stand at attention on reflex.

"No, sir," Rawne replied, his words nearly inaudible despite the silence.

"Carry on," Brother-General Dego said, and turned away, dismissing the Battle Commander. Rawne watched him walk away, and felt a chill settle into his stomach.

Brother-General Dego was well-meaning, loyal, and a capable commander, but he'd just doomed them.

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Well that took way too long. Writing the Brotherhood is difficult for me, and I've been assailed (mostly by myself) with other projects to work on.

As you may have guessed, this chapter and the next one are interconnected. Marisol's and Rawne's respective stories are about to intersect quite violently.

Until next chapter . . . .


	23. Chapter XXII: Bargain

_Power shifts quickly in the Brotherhood._

_-__**Seth, Supreme Commander of Nod**_

_**Chapter XXII: Bargain**_

* * *

_Commander Logan Rawne:_

_Your orders remain unchanged. Brother-General Dego is in command of the facility. If you disagree with his current course of action, you are free to express your concerns with him, but the Brother-General is the one who makes the decisions regarding the base and its defensive strategy._

_If a change is warranted, you will be notified._

_-General Killian Qatar_

* * *

"I can't say I am surprised," Jose said, peering down at the data pad containing the message. He glanced up at his friend, who sat behind the desk in his office, scowling at the holographic displays. Though he kept an interface desk in the command bunker, his personal office was private and secure. Like all Nod indoor facilities, the lighting was sub-par, but he could see his friend's annoyed expression in the reflected light of his personal holo-display.

"She could have given me _some _support," Rawne muttered.

"We are all small parts of the pillar that holds up the Brotherhood," Jose replied, and Rawne glanced up at him, a scowl emerging.

"We don't have time for platitudes," Rawne said. "I have to convince the Brother-General to evacuate before Kane's entire project collapses under GDI guns."

"We can't hold with the reinforcements that just arrived?" Jose asked, and Rawne shook his head. Brother-General Dego had said the 43rd Infantry would arrive in three days, but they'd apparently scrambled every vehicular unit they could readily move north, bringing several companies of mechanized infantry, three tank platoons, and a company of Spectre artillery to the research base earlier than they anticipated. It had been unexpected in both good and bad ways; while the firepower and troops helped strengthen their defense, it also pushed their logistics and fabrication budget nearly to the breaking point as they tried to supply enough fuel, ammunition, and other materiel for a sudden influx of close to a thousand extra personnel and combat vehicles.

"That artillery is a major boon, but they won't be enough," Rawne said. "We have twenty-seven Scorpions. They have three hundred Predators at last estimate. We're fucked."

That blunt assessment sent a chill down Jose's spine as he regarded his friend. Rawne was not a man to be daunted by grim odds, but he was also an intense realist when it came to his abilities. The defeat he'd suffered in B-2 didn't help with his confidence and certainty either.

Rawne peered down at the map of the river basin, eyes narrow and focused.

"The roads to the east are still open," Jose said, pointing to the routes they would use to return to Rio. "We have enough anti-air launchers along the road to discourage aerial pursuit. GDI will advance south through the river basin, ravines, and dead jungle to our north."

"Right," Rawne said, nodding. The uncertainty faded slowly as he assessed the situation. "That terrain is ugly. We can trap them there, slow down the advance. Weight of numbers and firepower will drive us back through the . . . ."

He paused, frowning.

"They're advancing through the jungle," he whispered. "But why? They'd have to know how dangerous . . . ."

Rawne paused, and then nodded, a sudden, sharp, lethal smile on his face. His hands began moving over the display, and from his position, Jose could see that Rawne was issuing new orders to the fabrication facilities.

"I can buy us two more days," he said, with sudden certainty. "Maybe three, and a window to escape. If only Dego can authorize the evacuation."

* * *

Twelve hours later, Ajay lay on his belly on the downslope of a hill north of the research facility, the early morning sun rising in the east, and watched the fireworks.

A kilometer away, the dead rain forest suddenly shuddered, dead branches breaking or cracking as an artillery piece cracked the earth and launched a shell at the advancing GDI forces many kilometers north. The Spectre artillery gun immediately lowered its cannon, retracted the bracing struts it used to steady the gun, and started driving east, crunching over a score of trees as it did so. Ajay glanced at the small display on his scope, showing a feed from the shell-tracking radars, and watched as one . . . two . . . four . . . six shells came over the tops of the trees toward the Spectre's last known position. He grimaced and pulled the armored ghillie suit over the top of his head; the deceptively durable armor-silk would protect him from overhead shrapnel while the dugout he was hiding in would block lateral shrapnel.

The earth violently shivered and noise pounded his ears as the GDI return fire hammered the last known position of the Nod artillery gun. Wood was pounded into powdery splinters and dirt was sent careening into the sky, forming a rising, swirling sheet of dust. Ajay was thankful for the earplugs he wore, which deadened most of the sound, and as he pulled them loose, he could hear the distant pounding of two more Spectres as they in turn launched counterbattery fire at the GDI Juggernauts. It was a dance of fire and movement, as Nod and GDI artillery guns fired at targets and skittered or plodded away when shot-tracking radar backtracked the angle of their shells and fed return fire coordinates to pieces designated as counterbattery units. Inevitably, it became a duel of counterbattery artillery units that were trying to take each other out so they could establish long-range artillery superiority. The dead rainforest of the Amazon River Basin was littered with dust clouds and rising sheets of smoke and flame from the ongoing, indecisive engagement. GDI had tried to decide the issue with aircraft, but they had withdrawn their Firehawks and Orcas when they discovered the hard way that Nod had set up dozens of anti-air batteries in the region. The wreckage of half a dozen GDI aircraft littered the lifeless rainforest.

The brown landscape between the two vastly-separated forces of scuttling artillery was alive with the periodic, fitful rounds of savage violence that characterized warfare between probing elements of the two armies. The wood would suddenly erupt into explosions and gunfire at unexpected moments as GDI troops advancing in the forest met Nod units probing their lines. Following those furious bursts of gunfire and railgun shots, Ajay could track where the general GDI line of advance was located. Both sides were being cautious, however and the Nod troops were avoiding using lasers and flamethrowers because of the possibility of igniting a forest fire.

He collated that data with reports from the Shadows and regular Nod units. His job out here was to keep the recon units coordinated, which was an essential part of the Commander's plan; they needed good eyes so that their mobile units could keep hitting the enemy and keeping them off-balance. But the data he was gathering and the conclusions he had reached were ugly.

GDI was advancing slowly, due to a combination of uncertainty, difficult terrain, and Commander Rawne's careful, mobile defense. Intercepted comms told him that GDI troops were convinced they had encountered a much larger force than they really were fighting, thanks to Rawne constantly keeping his troops mobile and hitting the GDI advance forces in unexpected points. Their troops would launch a sudden, aggressive rush at one point, then withdraw and fall back, melting into the woods, and attack a different point with equal ferocity, keeping the advancing GDI troops off-balance and certain that Nod's numbers were several times larger than they really were. The constant Spectre bombardment had convinced the enemy that they were fighting an entire brigade's worth of mobile artillery instead of a singly company's worth of artillery pieces. The overabundance of surface-to-air missiles reinforced the notion that the Nod army was far larger.

It wouldn't last forever. The aggressive, mobile defense was tiring out their troops, and their casualties were mounting. It wouldn't be long before GDI's steady advance would force them to engage in a more direct defense, at which point the enemy would get a better handle on what they were really up against. Then they'd launch a more concerted and confident attack, and the research base would be vulnerable.

Ajay scowled. He would have to move soon, considering the GDI advance. His recon bike was stashed on the other side of the wooded hill. He finished issuing final orders and an alert that he would be out of contact when something caught his eye.

Ajay saw movement further south, remarkably close to the hill where he was observing the battle. There were Nod vehicles moving around, but they weren't combat vehicles. They were support units: trucks rigged with hoses. Crewmen on the vehicles were operating the sprayers, spreading some kind of transparent foamy substance into the treeline. Though it wasn't obvious, most of those trucks had been put through the fabricators on the base to rapidly refit them with the hoses, and he knew that the Commander had reprioritized the chemical fabricators away from producing fuel and toward making fire retardant.

A message flashed on his screen then, and Ajay jolted. He began to rise, doffing his ghillie suit carefully and moving back up the hill. He had ten minutes.

Behind him, the forest erupted into sudden flares of violence. Every Nod unit along the line suddenly opened fire and lurched away from the GDI advance. Hundreds of Nod soldiers and vehicles along a lengthy, thin skirmish line thirty kilometers across began a swift, noisy, and violent retreat. Most of them were light vehicles: buggies and motorcycles, but more than half of their attached Scorpions were also scattered along the line. Infantry who had been moving quietly through the trees ran for the vehicles and leapt onto the available transport. GDI units in the woods opened fire at the sudden movement, and Nod vehicles along the line returned fire. Trees shattered and collapsed as cannon shots criss-crossed through the dead jungle. Scorpions, buggies, and bikes raced through the jungle, firing back at their pursuers to discourage anyone intent on running them down. It was an orderly, controlled retreat, but a retreat nonetheless.

GDI, responding like all armies in the past had to a fleeing enemy, started to surge forward in pursuit. Tanks thundered through the woods, infantry and armored personnel carriers charged over and around the undergrowth, and the distant Juggernauts increased their rate of fire. Cannons and machineguns and missiles roared. Nod vehicles crumpled and exploded. Ajay didn't witness it, but he understood the chaos and death that resulted from any retreat under fire, even an ordered one. He'd lived through them.

Ajay crested the hill and reached his bike, wincing as he saw units blinking out on the display, squads and vehicles gunned down as they withdrew. GDI tanks and troops lurched in pursuit, but as he pulled the cover off his bike, the intelligence officer saw the markers indicating the enemy slow and straighten out into a rough, even line. GDI officers, worried about possible ambush, were demanding a disciplined advance, and they were prudent to do so. The false retreat was such a common tactic that Nod and GDI both had entire officer-training classes around properly utilizing it and concealing a controlled retreat into ambush.

Within minutes, the GDI armor, artillery, and infantry were advancing once more with textbook caution, utterly unaware of how useless it was.

Ajay sat down on his bike and opened the general battlescape display, and saw the markers indicating Vertigo bombers en route from an airbase far south and west of their facility. The airbase they launched from was just a single tower, not the complete airbase they needed to evacuate the convoy and research equipment, but it had everything a small facility needed to supply air patrols and air support to various facilities across the Amazon: fuel, maintenance crew, munitions, energy cells for Venom guns, and most importantly of all for a force operating in a vast landscape of dead trees, air-droppable fire retardant.

The Vertigos went unnoticed as they streaked across the Nod line, flickering briefly in and out of visual sight as they released the heavy canisters that burdened their wingtips. They didn't look it, but they could carry a startling amount of munitions, and that translated into a _lot_ of compressed, pressurized fire retardant. Each canister exploded above the treetops above and behind the retreating Nod forces, releasing vast white clouds of fire-retardant foam. The bombers spread the retardant along the entire Nod battlefront and swept around the basin, painting a long, wide semi-circular line along the contact zone.

Ajay hit the gas on his bike and drove away, as the final warning signal went out, and Commander Rawne detonated the incendiary charges set among the fuel his refurbished trucks had been spreading.

Fire exploded all along the line of the GDI advance. A solid line of intense golden heat and bursting smoke bloomed directly in front of the GDI troops and surged forward like a hungry, living thing, leaping from dead tree to dead tree. It ripped outward in all directions toward the advancing enemy vehicles and troops, but where it met the wall of white foam the Vertigos were still spreading, it stopped cold. Fire advanced across the brown jungle at terrifying speed, surrounding and consuming the GDI line. Tanks backed away, lighter vehicles wheeled about to retreat, and soldiers too slow to reach either were caught in the oncoming wall of blazing heat and smoke. The roar of the flames covered their screams.

The dead rain forest only needed sulfur and brimstone to round it out.

Nod troops had, meanwhile, been cutting firebreaks in the forest and spreading more fire retardant to provide a safe point for them to retreat to. Ajay knew the fire would continue spreading and reach around the wall eventually, though by that time the Nod troops would have retreated and the base itself sat safely outside the woods themselves. The wall of heat and smoke would keep the enemy back for a while - at least a day or two, maybe enough to give them time to get the hell out of here.

The fire spread north, a constant wall of smoke and heat and chaos, and the GDI troops withdrew at full tilt from the sudden, furious conflagration.

"Holy balls," Ajay whispered, watching the hellish wall push the enemy away, and then he laughed. "Hey, assholes! Guess who has a _real _firestorm barrier!"

* * *

Battle Commander Rawne watched the firestorm spread from his interface desk in the command center, and shook his head slowly. The forest fire had been risky but necessary, especially the use of the fire retardant at the last minute to hide the trap. The smoke and fire would spread quickly, and _away_ from his troops, but it wouldn't delay the enemy for more than a couple of days, and once the fire spread around the semi-circle of fire retardant and firebreaks, it would sweep down any of his men that hadn't withdrawn. Thankfully, his facility sat outside the actual rain forest's remains, so they were safe from the firestorm, but many of his troops were in those woods. Any who didn't withdraw swiftly would eventually get caught in the firestorm, which was why he was withdrawing them now.

GDI would return swiftly enough. The smoke and fire looked a lot scarier than it really was, and the aftermath of the firestorm would clear up a lot of sight lines and difficult terrain for the enemy. They'd send armor screened by Pitbulls and Guardians into the ash fields that would remain after the fires had died, and advance on the facility anew.

But it bought him two days, and the smoke clouds would mask his convoys if Dego could be convinced to pull out. Maybe that would be enough.

* * *

"That was incredibly risky," General Dego remarked as they looked over the spreading patches of color that indicated where the forest fire was headed. The holographic display gave them an exacting amount of detail on both the spread of and ruin wreaked by the conflagration.

"True," Rawne said with a nod. "And I expect enemy casualties to be far lower than that firestorm would imply. Vehicle losses are likely nonexistent. Some damage to sensors or comms gear at best. They'll have that fabbed and replaced in hours."

The command bunker was abuzz as the command staff continued redeploying and reorganizing their troops following the engagement and subsequent forest fire. Though he hadn't made it obvious, Rawne had also put most of the motor pool on alert and readied them for immediate evacuation. The maintenance crews were scrambling to disassemble the spraying equipment and ready the trucks for transportation.

"I'm surprised that they were willing to move into the jungle like that," Dego said. "They should have taken some precautions against causing a forest fire, or having one used on them."

"They couldn't air-drop fire retardant thanks to our AA," Rawne said. "And I think they considered the dangers of a forest fire too minimal to employ anti-fire units on the ground."

"Idiots. But the fire will keep them busy for a while," Dego said after a moment with a nod. "I estimate . . . thirty-six hours minimum?"

"It depends on the extent of the blaze," Rawne said. "If it burns out quickly, I suspect thirty-six, yes. If it takes a bit longer, we might have forty-eight or sixty hours, roughly."

"Enough time to reinforce," Dego said. "Good work."

"Sir, I don't think we should sit back and wait," Rawne replied. "The fire and our AA screen will cover us if we start an immediate evacuation. By the time GDI returns we can have the whole base halfway to-"

"Commander," Dego said, his voice flat. He turned to regard Rawne evenly, expression solid and unyielding. "I have already stated my intentions regarding this facility. We hold. No evacuation. I will not risk it. Understand?"

Rawne did his best to keep the frustrated scowl he knew was shaping off his face. He swallowed the helpless anger rising up and pushed it back, keeping himself calm.

"Of course, sir," he managed. "By your orders."

The Brother-General relaxed slightly, only noticeable in the exaggerated movements of his armor, and his face softened a hair.

"Good," Dego said. He then nodded toward the doors. "You are dismissed, Commander. And to be frank, you look like hell. Take a rest."

Rawne frowned, then nodded. He hadn't looked in a mirror or had any sleep since they'd landed at Rio. He probably did look like crap.

"Of course, sir," he said. "I'll be in my quarters if you need me."

Rawne stepped outside of the command bunker, his bodyguard following him. Sergeant Marona walked up beside him, moving in step with him.

"The Brother-General refused?" she asked, and he nodded.

"He's convinced that holding position will suffice," Rawne said, "and while I can see some merit in his position, we can't risk GDI closing the eastern roads and cutting us off."

"You could keep pushing-" Marona suggested, but Rawne shook his head.

"The Brother-General is obstinate," he said. "Pushing a man like that will just make him push back harder and be more stubborn. He's not going to budge on this, I'm certain of that, especially after I gave him a perfect opportunity to withdraw." Rawne shook his head. "He's not going to change his mind, which means . . . ."

He slowed.

"Which means . . . I don't know." His scowl returned, deep and harsh. "I hate it when that happens."

He started down the corridor again, turning toward the officer quarters.

"Then what do we do?" Marona asked, and he shook his head, remaining silent. He needed to think.

But Rawne knew that if he did nothing, then Kane's secret project would almost certainly fall into enemy hands, and possibly the entire war effort might suffer as a result. Perhaps fatally.

He snorted quietly. That was melodramatic, but true.

* * *

Brevet Lieutenant Justine Marisol settled down into the observation room attached to the base hospital's critical care wing - the same room she'd been talking with Doctor Anders in yesterday. She peered through the glass, ignoring the aches and bruises she'd assembled from the day's fighting; there had been very little shooting on her part and a whole lot of crouching, observing, and reporting up until the forest inferno had started. She still had powdery fire retardant clinging to her boots.

The Shadow platoon's CO had been one of the casualties; he'd been killed when a Pitbull had stumbled across his team. She'd received her temporary rank within twenty minutes of his death.

_All praise the EVA-enhanced command loop._

Despite her exhaustion, Marisol had insisted on seeing her brother when her team had been cycled back to base. There had been no change to Arcoles' condition since yesterday, beyond the steady expansion of the crystal infection that was killing him bit by bit. He still lay in the isolation tank, suspended in water that was continuously flushed, sonic-filtered, and recycled into the tank. His face had relaxed with unconsciousness, a mercy considering the pain he'd been through.

She heard footsteps nearby, and perked up. Doctor Anders stepped into the room, his expression reserved.

"How is he?" she asked, and he exhaled.

"He is responding to the treatments," the doctor said. "We are slowing down the progression. We had to completely sedate him for sonic treatments and nanosurgery, which is still in progress now . . . ."

She heard the "but" in his words, but didn't speak, instead waiting for him to continue.

"The infection is severe and widespread enough that we're having trouble completely stopping the progression," he said. "Nanosurgery can only do so much, and a powerful enough sonic pulse to purge his body will kill him. We have maybe twelve hours before his lungs degrade to the point that he'll be on full life support. Major organ failure will ensue in six to twelve hours afterward."

She nodded, surprised at how little she was reacting to that grim assessment.

"Are there-" she started, but her voice caught. "Are there any other options?"

"Tiberium infusion treatments," Anders said after a moment, and she looked back up at him. "The treatment alters cellular structure to incorporate tiberium instead of being replaced entirely by it."

"Can you do that?" she asked, a sudden flutter of hope forming in her chest.

"I am . . . not authorized," Anders said after a few moments. "Only the Black Hand and higher-level ministers are permitted to authorize such treatments." A scowl worked its way onto his face. "Theological reasons. Only those who have volunteered for the treatment or are Black Hand initiates can undergo the procedure."

Marisol's heart sank at those words.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," he managed. She shook her head.

"Not your fault, doctor," she murmured, and looked back to her brother.

Several moments passed by in long silence, and Anders cleared his throat.

"I'll give you an update once we know more," he said, and she nodded.

"Thanks, Doctor," Marisol managed, her words sounding weak even to her own ears. She heard him turn and stride out of the room, leaving her alone to observe her brother as he floated in the isolation tank, dying bit by bit as tiberium clawed its way through his body.

She didn't sob or cry, despite the pain of watching him die. Growing up in the Zone had bred that sort of thing out of her. Death was expected, and overt weakness wasn't tolerated, but that didn't take away the pain or the feeling of helplessness that had settled over her.

Marisol watched him for a long while, eyes gradually drooping, and she settled back in her chair. After a moment, she closed her eyes, and exhaustion did the rest.

* * *

Rawne stood on the rooftop of the command bunker, staring at the wall of black haze spreading to the north. The pall of rising smoke continued to spread, he fires they had set were progressing steadily, a constant outward ripple of heat and chaos and choking smoke. They were dying down steadily, but for now were still enough to slow any advance.

"Half the basin's gonna be a field of ash," remarked Ajay, approaching Rawne from the little door to the rooftop behind him. The intelligence officer strode over to stand beside him, watching the horizon.

"Maybe something will grow there after this war is over," Rawne mused. He glanced up at his intelligence specialist. "Any changes I should know about?"

"Nah," Ajay replied, shaking his head. "GDI's tried flying some aircraft and drones over the smoke. We've blinded 'em. Captured comms still tells us that they don't know where we are, but they're getting mighty interested in what we're hiding. They've got firefighting units moving up to contain the blaze."

Rawne was silent for a few minutes at that, and Ajay waited for him to speak. He'd dealt with brooding officers before, especially Commanders. They seemed to have a daily brooding angst quota they had to fulfill, and Ajay had gathered that Rawne's was bigger than most.

"Now would have been the perfect time to clear out," Rawne said quietly. "But the Brother-General disagrees."

"Aye, that's the shit," Ajay agreed. "But he's the general."

"Dego either won't see or just refuses to see the bigger picture," Rawne said, scowling. "And I can't convince him otherwise."

"Commander," Ajay said, his words quiet. "Orders are orders. I follow 'em as best I can, but we all gotta do what's best for the Brotherhood. Kane wants you to protect the, uh, whatever it is, and so does the General. Might be better if you stop challenging him. Long as you're both butting heads, it hurts the whole defense."

Rawne turned toward him, the scowl fading into a thoughtful expression.

"True," he said, nodding. "A disunified command structure is useless to the rank and file."

"Damn straight," Ajay agreed. "I've served under bickering commanders before. Never a pretty sight. Ya'll need to pick a direction and stick with it, for better or worse."

"You're right," Rawne said, nodding, and exhaled quietly. He glanced back at the setting sun. "Thank you, Ajay."

"No problem."

* * *

Rawne's office was darker than usual when Sergeant Marona stepped inside. The only illumination was his holographic display, and it was muted to the point where she could just see his face, lit in orange and red, and his clasped hands as he leaned over the desk in apparent thought. For a moment she considered amplifying her vision to brighten the room, but decided against it. The Commander wanted the room darkened for a reason, and she respected that.

"Sir?" she asked as she stepped inside. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," Rawne said, nodding and gesturing to the chair opposite his interface desk. "Please." She sat down across from him.

"The current situation is untenable," Rawne said quietly, and Marona heard the frustration in his voice. "And I don't see a way through this. I'm lost in a Red Zone with no way out."

He paused, and she realized he was waiting for a response; maybe not consciously, but that was what he wanted.

"I would say that we need to focus on the mission," she said after a few moments. "We're here to protect this facility."

"No, Sergeant," Rawne said, "we're here to protect the _research_. Research that is critical to Kane's plans, or so I have been led to believe, and so I must assume. I've been ordered to protect it.

"But those _orders_," Rawne said quietly, shaking his head. "I'm already running on faith as to the importance of Kane's research here. I can't . . . ." He paused, shaking his head. "Reconciling my _orders _with what I _know _to be true is . . . difficult. Following my orders will damn Kane's research. At best it will be destroyed, and at worst it will fall into the enemy's hands."

Sergeant Marona looked away from her charge, not sure what to tell him. Orders in the Brotherhood, like all militaries, were sacrosanct. You trusted your superiors to make the right decisions, and even if they made bad ones, you followed them anyway. That was your duty. But that was the life of a dog-soldier, not a field officer.

She had no idea what she would do if she was in the Commander's shoes.

"Sir, I don't know what to say," she admitted, and he nodded.

"I . . . didn't expect you to, Sergeant. I just need someone to talk to," he admitted. "Someone I can trust." He leaned against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. She thought she could see the weight of his responsibility weighing down on him. His decisions could affect the future of the entire Brotherhood.

"Why?" she asked. "Its not just an issue with the orders, is it? There's something . . . ."

And then she understood. She realized, with a sudden jolt of anxious fear and excitement, what he was so conflicted about.

"Sir," she said. "You've already made the decision, haven't you?"

He stiffened, and Rawne's eyes opened. He peered across his desk, and met her gaze.

"You've chosen what you _need _to do," she said, "But you just don't _want _to do it."

Several heartbeats of silence passed, and then he closed his eyes again.

"No," he breathed. "I don't."

"Even though you know you have to," she pressed, For some reason, both of them were avoiding saying exactly what they were thinking. Probably institutional paranoia; GDI weren't the only ones that were paranoid about infiltration and eavesdropping.

Rawne was silent again for a few moments, eyes closed once more, and when he opened them, he stared directly at her. A couple of heartbeats passed.

"Can I count on you, Sergeant?" he asked. It took her a second to respond.

"Sir, I can _see _because of you," she said, keeping her electronic eyes locked on his face. "I can _fight _because of you. You gave me a chance to continue serving instead of being another casualty. I didn't take an oath or anything formal like that, but that changes nothing, sir. I'm yours no matter what."

"Thank you, Sergeant," he said, his voice quiet. He leaned back, his face becoming harder to see, and nodded. "Dismissed."

She nodded and rose, picking up her rifle, and stepped outside. Rawne watched her leave, and once the door closed, he reached up and wiped his eyes.

The Commander straightened himself, took a deep breath, and nodded. No more debate. Now was the time for commitment. Yes, or no?

If no, he would remain totally loyal to his superiors. He would fight and command and likely die over the next couple of days, another loyal and capable but ultimately wasted officer in the Brotherhood . . . and the Brotherhood would suffer a hard-fought but devastating defeat when GDI recovered their research.

If yes, he would be a traitor.

His hand hovered over his keyboard, and he exhaled, then made the choice.

Rawne brought up Brevet Lieutenant Marisol's message address, and composed a simple message.

* * *

An hour later, there was knock on his door.

"Commander?" asked a woman's voice outside. Rawne quickly activated the privacy blotter on his holographic display.

"Enter," he said, raising the lights slightly. The door slid aside, and Sergeant Justine Marisol stepped through. She was clad in the jumpsuit that went beneath the outer cloak layer of her Shadow combat uniform, and it clung to her well. He deliberately avoided trying to appreciate that, and locked his gaze on her eyes.

"Lieutenant Marisol, reporting as requested," she said, straightening a little.

"Glad you could make it," Rawne said, and gestured to the chair across from his desk. As she started toward it, he closed the door behind her and activated the privacy field around the office.

She sat down, and he evaluated her for a moment. She had that weariness of someone who had been seeing constant combat, and an ugly resignation lurked in her eyes. Marisol wasn't a lovely woman, but she might have been pleasant enough if her features weren't slackened by exhaustion and that particular flavor of hopeless grief that nested in people who knew loved ones were about to die and they could do nothing to stop it.

"I'll dispense with small talk," Rawne said. "Neither of us have the time. I know that you're the best Shadow team leader on the base, and now are the best Shadow officer here, paperwork pending. You also have a brother who is dying in the medical wing, due to tiberium infection."

Marisol stiffened at his circumspect assessment. He could see a mix of emotions behind the Shadow's eyes: sadness, despair, desperation, and sudden anger. He knew that he was playing on the woman's emotions and taking full advantage of the ugly situation she was in. Something stirred in him for a moment, a feeling he couldn't really identify, but it advised him against what he was about to do. He quashed it, then he took her emotional pain and turned it into the nastiest weapon he could imagine.

"I can save him."

* * *

The third and final person that Rawne needed to see in his office came in an hour later. Jose Alvarez walked into the room, still clad in his armor, the plating pockmarked in a couple of spots where GDI shooters had hit him during the skirmishes on the previous day before the firestorm had erupted.

"Logan?" he asked, and Rawne looked up. "By the Prophet himself, you look like shit."

"I haven't set foot outside the command bunker in weeks, it feels like," he murmured. "And I spent most of the day in this office."

"What do you need?" Jose asked, stepping into the room. Rawne nodded to the door, and the Black Hand closed it.

"Are you with me?" Rawne asked suddenly, and Jose blinked.

"Eh?" he asked, rather eloquently.

"Jose, I need to know if you're behind me, on whatever decisions I make. No matter what."

"Why?" Alvarez asked, his tone cautious.

"Answer me, please," the Commander asked. Rawne peered at him over the hologram, and Jose suddenly saw a very different man sitting there. Not the at-times charming, smiling, thoughtful friend who spent all his time talking the clothing off the ladies around him. In his place was a sharpened blade of a man: narrow and edged and deadly, with dark eyes devoid of anything but calculation and deadly intent. In the dim red lighting, he looked like the kind of man who could order thousands of men to their deaths without blinking; not because of conviction or belief or justifications, but because there was nothing else behind those eyes but calculating sociopathy and a desire to win at whatever cost.

"Are you _with _me, Jose?" Rawne repeated, his words very quiet. The office was still, save for the playing lights of the holographic display. Jose inhaled slowly, staring back at the startlingly grim spectre of his friend, and straightened.

"Whatever you ask for, Logan," he replied quietly. "I'm your friend."

Those words touched the Commander, and Jose saw something flicker in his eyes. The grim set of his mouth shifted a bit, and humanity suddenly spread across the lethal mask that had been Rawne's face. He leaned back and visibly relaxed, then nodded.

"We move swiftly," he said. "I've secured the allies we'll need for what has to be done."

"What are we doing?" the Black Hand asked.

"First, I need you to authorize a tiberium infusion treatment for a technician suffering late-stage crystalline infection," Rawne said, sitting up and becoming suddenly more animate. Jose sucked in a breath.

"I cannot do that for just anyone," he said. "A Black Hand officer can only-"

"-authorize such treatments for initiates to the order, I know," Rawne said. "Which is why you're going to induct him into the Hands as a specialist initiate. Use Rights of Conscription in Extraordinary Circumstances, under Article 33."

Jose nodded, confused as to Rawne's motivations but understanding the legality of the situation. The Commander was referring to the Delineation of the Faithful, the charter written by Confessor Marcion and endorsed by all of the Inner Circle commanders that outlined the Black Hand's rights and limitations within the Brotherhood's hierarchy. Article 33 allowed the Black Hand to conscript personnel from other military commands as needed in times of emergency, though its primary purpose was really to let the Black Hand effectively seize control of any Brotherhood force in times of disloyalty, disunity, or disruption of command.

"Why?" he asked. Rawne was silent for a couple of seconds.

"Friendship," he admitted. "The specialist in question is the brother of an officer I need to secure the allegiance of."

"I see," Jose said. "But why? What do you intend with this officer?"

"Dark deeds, my friend," Rawne said, his words quiet and devoid of emotion. He reached over and put a hand on his pistol. "Get it done, and we'll go from there."

* * *

The elevator into the command bunker came to a halt, and Battle Commander Rawne stepped off. His four-man bodyguard surrounded him, as he'd insisted. They strode off the elevator and started walking down the hallway toward the command center. Behind him, looming like plate-armored ogres, were a trio of Black Hands. Jose Alvarez and two of his battle-brothers followed Rawne. He didn't know their names, and they wore their black, multi-lensed helmets, making them seem less human and more like soulless avatars of Kane's will - which was really the entire point.

They passed the pair of acolytes on guard duty and stepped into the command center. Brother-General Dego was leaning over the holographic display of the battlefield, brows furrowed in thought. The light cast dark, eerie shades along his scarred flesh.

"Brother-General," Rawne said, walking up to the battlefield hologram. At a glance, he could see his units' positions had been unchanged since he'd issued the initial orders for the day. The smoke cloud and secondary fires from the conflagration were dying away, and he knew GDI was preparing to move into the burnt landscape again.

"Battle Commander," Dego said with a nod. "They still have not advanced, though not for long. I can feel it. They're going to close in soon."

"They know we're defending something valuable," Rawne said, and Dego grunted. He glanced up, noting the bodyguard and Alvarez's presence, and then turned his gaze back to Rawne.

"You're going to reiterate your suggestion, aren't you?" Dego asked. Rawne nodded. "My decision remains the same," Dego replied, his voice adamant. "We are holding position."

Rawne nodded, exhaling.

"Understood, sir."

The Commander drew his pistol and leveled it at Dego's head.

The room went silent, and Dego's eyes widened, but to Rawne's surprise, he didn't seem otherwise worried about a high-energy laser pistol being pointed at his face. The entire command bunker went deathly still, technicians and operators staring in bewildered shock at the coup happening right in front of them, not sure if they could believe what was happening.

"EVA, Commander override," Rawne said, and recited his override code. "Acknowledge."

"_Override received," _stated the toneless male voice of the base's standard EVA artificial intelligence.

"Lock down alarm system and communications," Rawne ordered. "I am assuming direct control of this facility. Brother-General Dego has been deemed unfit for command and relieved of his duties. We will prepare for immediate evacuatio-"

Two men across the room went for their sidearms. There was a sudden choked _thunk-thunk-thunk_, no louder than a man coughing quietly, and both men went down with a trio of rounds in their chests. A couple of other soldiers in the room started for weapons, but they died just as quickly. By that time, Rawne's bodyguard, Brother-Captain Alvarez, and his men had fanned out in a loose ring around Rawne, weapons shouldered and ready to fire.

The rest of the bunker's personnel froze in place once more, a couple looking around the room for the unseen shooters. The four members of Lieutenant Justine Marisol's Shadow team remained unseen, but Rawne took comfort in their presence.

"What insanity is this?" Dego demanded. "You've killed-"

"I have my orders," Rawne said. "And in my assessment, your decision to stay here will compromise Kane's project."

"I have made my decision, and this idiotic treachery will weaken us further! Put that weapon down, Commander!" Dego snarled. He took a step forward.

Maybe he was expecting that Rawne would back down under the force of his words and personality. Maybe he was hoping his powered armor would let him move faster than Rawne could react. Maybe he was banking on the rest of the room following his lead and mobbing the Commander's entourage.

Whatever the reason, it was a poor decision. The Commander's retort was short and eloquent.

Rawne pulled the trigger, and the laser beam seared clean through Dego's face before he'd finished the first step. Steam erupted from his head as the beam cored clean through his skull, charring the general's features and brain and turning it into an unrecognizable mass of cooked flesh. He flopped sideways, heavy armor crashing to the floor in a tangle of ceramic-plated limbs and fireproof cape.

"Pity," Rawne murmured. The second syllable was drowned out as the room erupted into chaos, and he threw himself to the ground as everyone who had a weapon went for it. Laser bolts and bullets sizzled and whipped across the room as a dozen technicians and officers drew sidearms and his bodyguard, Jose, the pair of Hands behind him, and the Shadows began slicing the room apart into fire zones.

The unarmored command staff didn't stand a chance. Half of them hadn't even drawn their weapons before they were cut down, and the rest were caught between invisible Shadows, a Black Hand officer in full gear, and Rawne's handpicked bodyguard.

Rawne rolled over as the brief gunfight raged, and peered down between his feet at the door to the hallway outside. They flew open, and the pair of acolytes on guard duty outside came rushing into the room, rifles shouldered. Rawne put a beam through the lead man's torso, the laser slicing clean through and flash-frying the man's heart and lungs. He pivoted to fire on the second guard, but Jose beat him there, putting two quick shots into the man's torso while Rawne struck him in the belly as he went down.

Sudden silence fell over the command center, and Rawne scrambled to his feet. Every officer and technician in the room was dead save for Rawne's team. Smoke and the pungent stench of burnt flesh and seared plastic hung heavy in the room; blood pooled the floor around the personnel shot by the Shadows and appeared black in the dim red lighting.

"EVA," he called quickly. "Has comms override been established?"

"Confirmed," replied the AI's empty voice. Rawne exhaled and strode over to the command console. He activated it, bringing up the holographic display. At the edge of his vision, he could see the Shadows uncloaking. Marisol and three other troopers under her command had infiltrated the room and taken up positions on the walls, using suppressed one-handed machine pistols instead of suppressed modular combat rifles. He had no idea how they'd managed to secure themselves to the walls and ceilings of the room unseen, but that was why he'd secured their loyalty through their commander.

* * *

Convincing them to go along with her had been surprisingly simple, Marisol realized. Cross, McCarthy, and Coron were her squad, and despite being a Brevet Lieutenant, they were still hers. She asked them to follow her, and they did. She gave them orders, even orders to help kill a Black Hand officer and fellow members of the Brotherhood, and they followed them.

She expected needing to convince them, to bargain or cajole or coerce. Instead they had simply agreed and followed her lead.

To say that was disturbing and settled poorly in her gut was an understatement.

She watched Commander Rawne as he leaned over the display, and looked up at the conspiracy he'd assembled. Black Hands, bodyguards, and Shadows waited on his next words.

"Patch me in to all regimental, battalion, and company commanders," he ordered the base EVA. "Identify remaining members of General Dego's command staff." He looked up to Brother-Captain Alvarez and his bodyguards. "Jose, I want you to round up a detail and detain the rest of his command staff. Do it quietly. Marisol, take your people and secure the rest of the command level, make sure we didn't miss anyone. Lethal force authorized for anyone who doesn't surrender. Marona, put a detail outside the door."

She nodded in acknowledgement, hefted her weapon, and left the room, certain that, all else considered, her brother had a better chance under Rawne than he had otherwise.

As long as he saved Arcoles, she'd do whatever Battle-Commander Rawne wanted her to do, and that only slightly unnerved her.

* * *

The Shadow officer nodded in acknowledgement and moved out of the room, while Rawne assumed direct control over the rest of the base's assets. Jose Alvarez watched him, noting the certainty, if not animation, in Rawne's movements, and felt a rumbling bit of disquiet in him. He barked quick orders to his Hands, and the two men moved out. He could trust them, but was unsure about the rest of the base's Hands. They were loyal to Dego, but he suspected Logan Rawne was not going to let word get out that he'd just massacred the command staff in the bunker.

Battle Commanders didn't need them anyway.

Alvarez paused next to Dego's decapitated corpse and kneeled beside the Brother-General. he whispered a few words of regret and apology, and then took his tags. His name would be added to the shrine in Sarajevo.

He rose, looked back over the slaughtered personnel in the bunker - Nod personnel, his brothers and sisters - and that disquiet grew.

Jose swallowed it and pushed it away. He had work to do.

* * *

Mari Marona pointedly ignored the corpses as she addressed the bodyguard detail under her command.

"You heard the Commander. Let's get this place secured," she ordered, and they nodded. As the black-armored figures started for the door, she glanced back at Rawne, leaning over the holographic display and locked in deep contemplation. His shoulders were tight and slumped, as if he bore a sudden, heavy weight.

She shook her head and turned away from him. He needed her to secure this place.

* * *

He glanced around the chamber at the corpses, and made the first order he issued as he sat down was to get maintenance drones in here to clean the corpses out. He spared a glance to the ruined body of Brother-General Dego as he did so, and exhaled in regret and weariness.

A waste. But it was done.

Logan Rawne leaned over the console, and took command. He'd wash out the blood later when he'd finished Kane's work.

* * *

_**Brotherhood Data Archives: Classified Communications Archive: Confidential Communication Re: Aborted Military Operation Against The Pentagon During First Tiberium War**_

_Yes. Power shifts more quickly than some people think._

_**-Kane**_

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_This chapter was a long time in coming, due to a number of issues. One of the biggest ones is the simple fact that this chapter was mostly about characters, primarily Rawne, struggling with internal conflict, with relatively little action. I don't write those very well - or at least, I'm struggling to write them well. I can write twelve thousand words of senseless violence, but hammering out a thousand words about people struggling with that violence is far harder.

Another issue is that this chapter underwent about three rewrites and was actually going to be substantially longer, but I became dissatisfied with some elements and cut them out. There was originally going to be an entire scene involving Marisol infiltrating the Nod labs to scout out the nature of the project for Rawne, but I cut it because it was not really that great, drew things out, and removing it added to the moral ambiguity of Rawne's actions. There was also a scene where Ajay was interrogating a GDI POW, but it was entirely superfluous. Other scenes got rewritten multiple times until I was able to narrow the chapter's focus down to the important part: Rawne's betrayal, coup, and murder of Dego.

With the end of this chapter, the focus is going to shift back to the other side of the conflict, and to a much larger and noisier part of the war: the GDI assault on Alexandria. And there's going to be some friends coming along for the ride...

Until next chapter . . . .


	24. Chapter XXIII: Tough Guys

_**Chapter XXIII: Tough Guys**_

_An analysis of the captured components from the Nod vehicles we seized in Egypt crossed my desk this morning. That was the first time in the entire war that I felt that degree of sheer, ass-opening terror._

_-General Jack Granger_

* * *

"_Pyramid, this is Caprica Two-One. Contact with unidentified vehicle, range thirty. Feeding it to you, over."_

The truck bumped along the rough, paved road running southwest, seventy kilometers from Alexandria. The road had been laid decades ago, but with the collapse of local government no one had been willing to expend the resources to repave it, especially considering it led to what had once been a vast tiberium wasteland. Even the Brotherhood of Nod's seemingly endless resources had a stretching point, it seemed.

"_Caprica Two-One, acknowledged. Maintain eyes on target. Vectoring a drone to provide overhead cover, over."_

It was an older truck, one of the last of the Toyota lines before the auto manufacturer had been absorbed into GDI decades ago. This one was built for heavy hauling, a big and brawny vehicle even before it had been covered with scrap metal plating and ceramic bolt-on armor. The rear bed had been converted into a small troop hauler, covered with metal and with a heavy machinegun mounted on a swivel. The front grille had been mounted with a heavy metal frame bumper, festooned with short spikes.

"_Pyramid, confirm vehicle is armed. Thermal showing three possibles inside, over."_

"You sure about this, ma'am?" asked the driver of the truck. He carried a mixed accent of French and Hungarian. "We're driving right into their perimeter. We could just radio them."

"It has to be face to face, Deaton," the woman sitting beside him replied, and shook her head. She had a mutt of an accent: French, British, and Lebanese, with a hint of German in the vowels. "They won't trust radio communication, even with the old ID codes from the second war."

"_Caprica Two-One, Pyramid, we can confirm three passengers. Drone will be overhead in one minute, over."_

"Yeah, but this is GDI, ma'am," Deaton said. "Likely to just blow us up from the air if they think we're a threat." He glanced around, checking out the slits in the windows. "We shouldn't have used an armed vehicle."

"We're in Egypt, Deaton," the woman replied. "Going around in a truck that _isn't _armed would be more suspicious."

"Fair point, ma'am."

"_Pyramid, Caprica Two-One. Interrogative. Ah, do we need to mark for airstrike, over?"_

"Do you think they'd help?" Deaton asked.

"They're smart enough to recognize what we can offer them," she replied.

"Sure about that, ma'am?" Deaton asked, his tone skeptical.

"Have to hope on it," she said with a shrug. "We need them, they need us. We need to be rid of Nod and al-Hazaam's thugs."

"With respect, Captain," Deaton muttered. "You're the last person I'd expect to be relying on hope or faith."

"_Caprica Two-One, Pyramid. Mark for airstrike, but remain on standby. Actual is confirming, over."_

"Faith is overrated, Deaton," she replied. "Hope is more useful. Makes for more efficient ammo usage."

Deaton barked out a laugh.

"There's the practical, cynical bitch I remember," he said, and she smirked, then checked the laptop beside her.

"Close enough. Let me out here. I'll walk."

"_Pyramid, Caprica Two-One, vehicle is stopping, over."_

"_Caprica Two-One, Pyramid. Acknowledged, over."_

She clambered out of the technical, rifle slung across her chest, and started walking away from it. Her heart began to pound in her chest, and she expected a bullet to lance through her lungs or neck any moment from an unseen GDI sniper. She had no idea where they were, but they were out there nonetheless.

The sand blew past in the hot daytime winds, familiar to her after decades in this barren landscape. The hood, shemag and robes over her light armor insulated her from the worst of the wind. Thankfully she didn't have to wear a sealed mask to keep microscopic tiberium particles from getting into her lungs, so the heat wasn't the stifling sort that came with that kind of headgear.

She stepped well away from the vehicle, unslung her rifle, and held it up in the air from the middle of the barrel.

"_Pyramid, Caprica Two-One, one foot mobile exiting vehicle. Appears armed. Standby. Foot mobile is moving away from vehicle. Looks like he's holding a weapon in the air, over."_

She waited, sweat running down her neck and back, and hoped they understood her intent.

"_Pyramid, confirming that, Caprica Two-One. Maintain eyes on target. Actual is dispatching a fireteam to pick them up, over."_

* * *

First Lieutenant Edward Boyd narrowed his eyes as the trio of Pitbulls rolled down the bumpy, broken road toward the contact point. He'd been out with his platoon on patrol when the Battle Commander had issued them new orders through EVA. He hated it when that happened; most conventional commanding officers actually bothered using the radio instead of networked artificial intelligences who changed orders without any warning. Boyd liked actually getting some warning when his parameters were changed instead a sudden flashing marker that overrode everything he'd previously been doing. Worse still when they did it in _combat_ . . . .

On the Pitbull's console, he could see the marker indicating the unidentified vehicle one kilometer ahead, just beyond the next rise.

"Toaster-Two, move north, maintain five hundred meter distance. Toaster-Three, same to the south," Boyd ordered. He suppressed a smirk. Not every platoon received stylish callsigns like "Hitman" or "Dragon" or "Phalanx." He was lucky he hadn't gotten something even sillier.

The other two Pitbulls veered off, their launchers tracking the target vehicle - or rather, the marker indicating where it was, fed to their targeting systems from telemetry provided by both the sniper-recon team and the overhead drone. Boyd's own Pitbull surged over the hilltop and started down the other side, and he could see the old junker-turned-technical parked half a kilometer away, the lone foot-mobile figure standing about thirty meters closer and with a rifle held high in the air.

"Bring us within fifty meters. We'll dismount. If they try anything, ribbon them." The driver and gunner acknowledged, though he knew that if anyone reacted first, it would be the sniper team providing overwatch.

He slipped his helmet on as they closed in, and sealed the rebreather. His helmet HUD blazed into existence inches from his face, and he linked it to the vehicle's sensors and targeting. As he finished that, the Pitbull ground to a halt just shy of fifty meters from the lone figure. Boyd levered open the passenger door and dismounted, bringing his GD2 up to his shoulder in a move-to-contact position. Behind him, PFC Chuen dismounted and covered their rear.

Boyd strode through the sand, the heat jumping up what felt like fifty degrees, despite the Pitbull's shit air conditioning. The heat of his own breath against his mask didn't help. His boots slogged through the sand, and a not-insignificant part of him worried that even now a microscopic bit of tiberium had dug into his uniform or armor and was festering like a mass of crystal gangrene.

He got within twenty meters of the lone figure, still holding the rifle aloft, before he stopped. He kept the rifle's barrel leveled at the ground a couple meters n front and to the left of the sandy-robed person. Whoever the person was, they were obviously big and well-fed, though he couldn't tell gender through the brown coat, shemag, and robes.

"First Lieutenant Boyd, Global Defense Initiative," he called. "Identify yourself."

The figure lowered the rifle, but didn't set it down in the sand. Instead, the person reached up to the shemag and pulled it off, revealing her face.

He wasn't surprised it was a woman; neither GDI nor Nod care dmuch for gender these days. What did surprise him was the glassy green knobs jutting from her right jaw, cheekbone, and curving over the top of her eyes. Another group of tiberium crystals jutted from her left jaw, and tiny nubs of green poked from her flesh elsewhere.

"My name is Captain Autumn Burke," she said, he voice clear and strong, ringing with an accent that seemed to be a mongrel of British and Turkish, with some German in the vowels. The mutant woman stared back at him with hard brown eyes, even from this distance.

"I have a proposal for GDI, on behalf of the Forgotten."

* * *

There were only three variations on the weather around Pyramid Base, Sergeant Colt had come to conclude: clear and hot, sandy and hot, and cloudy and hot. Cloudy and hot, he had determined, was the worst, because that meant everyone had to throw on hoods and seal their BDUs. Cloudy in Egypt meant an ion storm was rolling by, and that meant flight ops were grounded, tiberium particles were flying everywhere, and no one wanted a lungful of crystal. They were close enough to the Red Zone that it was a miracle they weren't walking around under permanent hazardous-ops conditions.

He was just glad that he didn't need to walk around with a hood and mask whenever he stepped outside. After spending a week watching roads outside Alexandria with a bladder-bag as his only relief, he was glad to just have a shower, a shave, and three hots and a cot.

He sat beneath one of the plastic tents, clad only in his standard BDUs and ballistic vest, helmet and mask hanging from his belt, and methodically worked his thumbs to push rounds into standard GD2 magazines. Master Sergeant Goetzmann, from the 166th Assault Infantry Battalion, had been roaming the tents and barracks like a predator, hunting for soldiers who looked like they were busy being useless and dragging them over to help load magazines. The last thing anyone expected when they signed onto the recon career path was to be sitting around a chem-proof tent, idly chatting with other troops while shoving bullets into boxes, but he welcomed the change of pace. It was boring, simple work, and it let his mind wander.

The chem-proof tent was filled with half a dozen troops, drawn from just about all of the component battalions that made up the FEST-F. The Commander had pulled together an eclectic group: mechanized infantry from Germany and Northern Europe, armor from what had been the UK, Special Ops from the Pacific, aviation units from Japan, South America, and East Asia, and Colt's own 4th Recon.

"Shit, man, you heard what El-Tee Boyd's platoon brought in?" PFC Andrystyl said as he bound a stack of loaded magazines together with shipping cord. The Swede, a machinegunner for the 86th Mechanized, was built like a truck, and his voice was low and thick with a mutt of an accent born out of every country in Scandinavia.

"Locals, I heard," replied Corporal Periotti, a Floridian from Colt's own 4th Recon. His hands moved quick and fast, methodical but efficient as he loaded. "Nod defectors."

"Bullshit, not what I head," Specialist Brown, a vehicle mechanic from the 121st Armored. Her accent was British-Irish, and even in full armor she was skinny and her features sharp and narrow. "It was a few mutants. Forgotten. Armed, too, but they had an escort."

"Shiners," Colt grunted. "You know how many times we had to deploy against them back in B-2? Fucking crystal-heads were always hitting the towns on the edges of the Yellow Zones. Always ran before we could get there and run them down. The fuck can they offer?"

"Shiners fucked up Nod good in the Second," Periotti said.

"Yeah, 'till they stuck that shit with Tratos on us and fucked off," Colt grumbled. "Even after we proved it was CABAL, they just went off to the Red Zones and told everyone to eat green and die."

"If they want to eat bullets," Andrystyl grunted, "they can eat bullets for us. Take some Noddies down with them, eh?" He swung up another box of magazines and packed them in with the rest.

"Saw some casualties come in a bit ago," Brown commented after a few moments. "Mech troops from my B Company."

"They okay?" Colt asked.

"Two dead," Brown said. "Five wounded. Driver said they got hit from stealth. Missiles, right over a ridge, no warning."

"Stealth?" Andrystyl asked. "Fucking stealth tanks?"

"Noddies have been hitting and running all along the axis," Colt said, snatching up a new empty box magazine. "Makes sense. They're trying to do what they can before we hit Alexandria."

"Pfft, yeah, everyone and their mum knows where we're headed," Brown said. "Not subtle. Friend of mine in 2nd Heavy, their 31st Battalion? Said they got hit hard by stealths and beam guns at the edge of the old 11 Highway between Cairo and Alexandria. Lost seven Predators and a Mammoth. Then they got hit by Vertigos when they brought up the firepower. Lost a dozen and three more."

"Damn," Colt muttered. "Command's fucking around out here when we should be punching through to the city and taking out their air power."

"How bad is it out there?" Brown asked. She glanced at the two recon troopers. "You guys have been scouting it. How many?"

The Sergeant paused halfway through loading, and remembered what he'd seen. The numbers of convoys, the troop movements, the aircraft coming and going from the Nod launch towers.

"A lot of assholes," Colt admitted, sliding another round into the magazine.

"Lot of soon-to-be-dead assholes," Periotti clarified.

* * *

Battle Commander Alexander Karrde settled into the chair at the head of the circular table in the secured conference module. He'd initially wanted their new guest to be brought into the command bunker for their meeting, but his advisorss had pointed out that they couldn't fully trust the Forgotten representative. Nod used mutant soldiers, and even if she wasn't a Brotherhood plant, the Forgotten were neither unified nor had gotten along perfectly with GDI. Their mutual history had included more than a few bullets exchanged.

The fabbers had spat out this conference module in less than an hour. It wasn't large or well-appointed; in fact it was mostly just a large plastic box with a bolted-on air conditioning unit and a table, with a dozen chairs. They'd brought in a flatscreen television to mount on the wall, a local network connection, and most importantly, a huge water cooler.

Karrde had, after some consideration, decided it best to not bring the collection of colonels and lieutenant colonels who commanded different elements of his Wild Cards. He'd discovered the hard way that assembling a hodgepodge of troops from different nationalities and Zones was not a good way to quickly create a cohesive fighting force, and while they performed well during combat, outside of combat the upper-level officers of his task force - really a division in all but name - bickered like angry bulls. The other division commanders were occupied with Nod counterattacks along the southern flank of their axis of advance; Brigadier Creden and his 2nd Heavy Armored were stuck in worst, with Brigadier Hienstremann's 14th Infantry right in alongside them. Brigadier Axel Higgs and his 143rd Integrated Air Strike Force were tied up providing air support across the entire region, and the other four divisions were further west, tied up fighting over the Sinai Peninsula and pushing up into the former Israel and Lebanon.

Therefore, Karrde had brought in only one other officer, one who, despite the Colonel's insignia on his uniform's collar, did not hold any actual command in the task force. Then again, no one wanted to be under the command of Colonel Nick "Havoc" Parker, and he wanted no one under him either. The "Colonel" rank was mostly there so everyone knew how important he was, being the Commander's personal advisor and, when the situation called for it, troubleshooter.

Captain Autumn Burke stepped into the conference module, accompanied by two GDI troopers in full heavy combat gear and carrying riot guns. Not that it would matter; Karrde had seen even the smaller and more recently altered tiberium mutants heft weapons suited for vehicle mounts, and bat humans aside with one arm. Burke probably could have killed both of her escorts before they could raise their weapons.

He watched the woman carefully as she entered. She wore sand-brown fatigues and jacket, incongruous with the idiotically-hot landscape of Egypt. Then again, tiberium mutants had impressive heat tolerances. She had just as much sheer body mass as the soldiers who escorted her into the room, and was a few centimeters taller than them, even in their helmets and body armor. Her hair was dark brown, pulled back behind her head in a rough braid. Her features were delicate and her jawline wide, giving her face a rounded look. She would have been attractive, if one ignored the livid scars running down the right side of her face where it looked like someone had come way too close with a knife far too many times. Coupled with the jutting tiberium crystals and the obvious wear from living in a Yellow Zone, she looked like the kind of person who would have been both experienced enough to fight Nod and tough enough to earn command of a force of Forgotten.

And there were the eyes. Sharp, dangerous, evaluative. There was iron in those eyes, the old kind that came from a lifetime without compromise. Those eyes were most often seen in the experienced Nod officers they'd captured, hard men and women who lived on scraps of bread and canned meat and beans and poorly-filtered water, sleeping on hard rocks under an open sky, and driven on by hate for their enemies. Whatever Captain Burke was, she had the eyes of a dedicated soldier.

"Battle Commander," she said as she stepped into the room. She stood straight, her tone respectful, but offered nothing else.

"Please, Captain, take a seat," he said, gesturing toward the empty chair. The mutant reached out and gingerly pulled the chair, moving with the cautious grace of a Zone Trooper in full kit around unarmored humans. She settled down and sat straight, eyeing him with that hard gaze.

"Captain, I have to admit that this has caught us off-guard," Karrde started. "GDI has not had any contact with the Forgotten for decades."

"We are not unified as we once were," Burke said, shaking her head. "Even under Tratos, we weren't a single force. Without Tratos . . . " She shrugged, a slight motion. "We are still Forgotten. A nation, perhaps, but not a country or entity."

"There a difference?" Parker asked, and Karrde glanced at the comment. Havoc shrugged. "What? Curious."

"I understand, Captain Burke," the Commander said, pointedly turning back toward the mutant woman. "If there is no central Forgotten government for us to deal with, then who do you represent?"

"The local Forgotten military in this region," she said. "There is no central authority here beyond the Brotherhood and ourselves. Our enclaves are much deeper in the desert, where tiberium grows thicker and Nod hesitates to tread. We help to convince them further."

"You still fight Nod?" Karrde asked, and she nodded.

"The Forgotten and the Brotherhood have been enemies for decades," she said, and a smirk spread over her face, twisting the scars and the crystal growths. "The impending end of the world hasn't changed that, any more than it has changed for the Brotherhood and GDI. They still prey on our people for research into our mutations, and the warlords under their banners see our enclaves as targets for food and resources."

"I see," Karrde replied. "I assume the offer you mentioned to my subordinate involves our mutual enemy?"

"Yes," Burke said, with a short nod. "Though many other Forgotten enclaves despise GDI almost as much as they do Nod, I can see past our differences. The enemy of my enemy has never changed, Commander."

Karrde nodded. The alliance between GDI and the Forgotten had always been one of necessity; GDI had the firepower, resources, and manpower, while the Forgotten had the local support, intelligence, and knowledge of the land. That never meant they had _liked _one another. Mutant marauders had been raiding GDI outposts and civilian towns as far back as prior to the Second Tiberium War, and GDI's leadership had done little to help the mutant population during the widespread social collapse between the First and Second Wars. The fact that most of them came from former Nod territory hadn't engendered good will in either direction.

"Captain, what are you proposing?" he asked.

"Cooperation between your troops and mine when you attack Alexandria and Cairo," she said, and Karrde blinked. She nodded, and then shrugged. "It is obvious where you're going to strike next, Commander. Egypt is a massive wasteland. Its two steps from being a Red Zone, and the only other inhabited areas beyond our enclaves are the regions around the Nile Delta. The port facilities in Alexandria and the nuclear launch facilities outside Cairo are where the largest concentration of Nod troops are located."

She leaned forward slightly, and another smile twisted her features, this one a little more vicious.

"And we know about the weapons research they've been working on," she added. "We know they were transporting chemical components to Alexandria. And we can feed you more information on where the main research facility is located."

Karrde slowly nodded, thinking furiously over the offer. While the Forgotten had every reason to want to cooperate with GDI, he couldn't trust her offer completely, if only because of simple institutionalized paranoia about Nod infiltration.

"If we accept your offer," Karrde said. "What can you give me beyond intel? You said you commanded Forgotten soldiers."

"I can bring up a fully-mechanized force totaling seven thousand," she said. "Mixed armament, light vehicles, a lot of it scavenged. Not well-suited for slugging it out with heavy armor, but a few thousand mutants are a force to be reckoned when going house-to-house."

"That's a lot of angry mutants," Parker commented, and Karrde looked to him again. "Hey, I fought a bunch of Nod's freaks back in the First and saw Forgotten in action in the Second. Seven thousand of them on our side is a whole lot of pain ready to be served to Nod."

Karrde frowned, and nodded at his point. In the Second Tiberium War, the Forgotten had been lucky if they could field companies of light recon and vehicles in support, as opposed to something akin to a short division. And their contribution had still be asymmetrically powerful.

"Our numbers grow every month," Burke said, nodding. "We don't keep census data. We have a hard time keeping everyone fed. But war provides for everyone, whether victory or death."

"Those troops and their expertise would be a massive boon," he said, and for a moment he remembered what it had been like fighting in Rio against the Nod fanatics. The chaos of close-quarters battle, the fear of snipers, the concentration of noise from being hemmed in by sheer walls, attacks coming from every direction. "But as much as I hate to admit it, my people won't be willing to trust yours right away."

"Understatement of the millennium," Havoc muttered, drawing another glare.

"GDI," Burke said, exhaling in what sounded like disappointment. "Of course. Blue Zone blunts don't trust Red Zone shiners."

"Nor do we trust that someone doesn't walk under a scorpion tail flag, either," he added, shaking his head.

"We have had our own share of problems with the Brotherhood infiltrating our ranks," Burke said. "You want a gesture of faith? Something to prove our willingness to cooperate?"

"Something good enough to convince my people you're not going to stab us in the back," Karrde said. It bothered him to admit that, but it was true. "I can't trust an offer like this, out of the blue."

"I understand," she said with a weary nod. "I wish we didn't have to do things this way." She sat back, eyes going distant, and nodded. "As I said, we know where the Brotherhood was researching this new weapon, whatever it is. It's a facility in Casabad, a pumping station for an irrigation and water supply system. I can get you location, defenses, observed force strength, and some limited layout data."

Karrde relaxed, and nodded.

"Even if they've completely emptied the site of components or research-"

"They haven't," Burke said quickly. "After you smashed their troops a week ago, they've buttoned up the site. There should still be personnel, components, and possibly research data inside."

"Excellent," he said. "Captain, if you can give that information, and it checks out, it would go a long way toward . . . ." He paused, about to say 'proving you were trustworthy,' but stopping himself. He reminded himself he needed to be more diplomatic; he'd been plenty blunt already.

"Toward helping us drive these bastards out of Egypt."

* * *

Thousands of miles' worth of metal pipes stretched across the desert landscape, running from one dead or dying city to another. The pipe network that slashed back and forth across Egypt had been part of a classic GDI humanitarian initiative to get water to cities whose own water supplies were literally drying up due to the political collapse at the start of the 21st century. Unlike many of those initiatives, the project was quite successful, but when GDI began withdrawing troops to the Blue Zones, local interests had taken over the water supply network.

The fact that those "local interests" were working for the Brotherhood of Nod was no real surprise. What _was_ surprising was that the Brotherhood had repurposed one of the primary pumping stations into their main research facility.

From low orbit, Major Huan Chen's monitor showed a pumping station that looked innocuous enough, save for having a dozen automated Nod turrets surrounding it. The feed he was getting on his Firehawk's screen was being sent by a Prophet observation craft in low orbit, just a few hundred meters above his own aircraft. The blocky ship had replaced the Kodiak air command vessels, which themselves had replaced the AWACS and other 20th-century airborne EW platforms GDI's member countries had used in the First Tiberium War. The Prophet had every scope and scanner on board pointed at the pumping station far below, and Chen could easily make out individual soldiers and their weapons as they patrolled the pumping station's perimeter.

The building itself was a rectangular structure three stories tall; according to the mutants' reports, the first floor was the maintenance and operations level, the second had housing for the "workers" and the third was the station's control room - which meant it was the command room for the entire research facility. The building was surrounded by pipes and pumping machinery, and low sheds were scattered around the compound - ostensibly vehicle sheds and equipment rooms, but actually containing combat vehicles and armories. A chain-link fence surrounded the compound, and the turrets ringed the complex, connected to the low-profiled bunkers that controlled the launchers.

"_Apex approaching, twenty seconds," _reported Lawrence, the EAA for Chen's flight.

"Copy that," Chen said. "Vipers, prepare to cut strat-boost and begin dive."

Acknowledgements came over the comm, and Chen stilled his breathing. He watched the altimeter slow as he leveled out the ascent, and the distant roar of the stratospheric boosters began to die down. He could see star overhead, whirling past as the Firehawk slowed its ascent.

He reached the apex of the ascent, and nosed the Firehawk into a dive toward the planet below. It was in the early morning hours, and he could see the sun rising to the east. Below, he could see the brown-gray stretch of desert, with a storm-gray expanse of ocean to the north. Glittering lights indicated where Alexandria and Cairo were located, but they were muted compared with how they might have looked half a century ago. Flickers of light ran through the gray clouds, indicating localized ion storms. And everywhere, he could see the gleaming green patches of tiberium, glowing in the darkness and reflecting star- and moonlight.

This was why he flew. For moments like this.

"Vipers, confirm target acquisition," he ordered, in the sudden moment of quiet peace at the top of their climb.

"Two, bunkers marked."

"Three, marked."

"Four, marked."

"Begin dive," Chen ordered, and gunned the Firehawk's engines. They roared anew in his ears. "Good luck, people."

The four fighter-bombers started the Wild Weasel run.

GDI hadn't changed the common term for SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) airstrike operations from the old American phrase. What they _had_ changed was the methodology. In the 20th the Wild Weasel strikes had been dependent on AWACS, long-range missiles, and drones to locate, strike, and distract SAM sites respectively, but that proved ineffective against EVA-driven SAM setups, which could pick out approaching aircraft and blast them out of the sky despite countermeasures. GDI had often been forced to destroy SAM sites from the ground, resulting in bloody battles where GDI troops couldn't rely on air support. Wild Weasel operations against Nod SAMs were casualty-ridden missions demanding pilots willing to dive into enemy radar nets to take out their launchers.

The strat-booster changed that, as they allowed the Firehawks to simply fly _over_ the SAMs and their radars and come down at them from the stratosphere. They were based on the same boosters GDI routinely used to get ships and satellites into orbit, but modified to fit onto a Firehawk without sacrificing mobility. But there were drawbacks: the boost was short-term, and they ate fuel at such a vicious rate that even with drop-tanks the Firehawk would have to return to base immediately after releasing munitions.

But there was nothing more exhilarating than flying straight down into enemy launchers' radar coverage and dropping high-explosive, laser-guided thunderbolts on enemy heads. Major Chen and his Vipers were specialists in Wild Weasel and other strat-booster operations, and thus were old hands at playing Zeus.

Chen was shoved back into his seat as his Firehawk screamed down into the atmosphere, the air igniting around him as he reached reentry speeds. Strat-booster-equipped Firehawks had ceramic heat-resistant plating bolted on as part of their modifications, but even so the temperature inside the cockpit rose to uncomfortable levels. Sweat ran down Chen's face, but he ignored it, keeping his eyes locked on the altimeter, a wild grin on his face as his heart pounded from the rush of leaping a step closer to space and descending to the planet like a burning angel.

There was a reason they called them Firehawks. Wreathed in reentry heat, they screamed down through the atmosphere, and at the very edge of the SAM sites' upper radar coverage, the Viper flight released and began to level out. Below, the SAM sites immediately swiveled their weapons up at the new, descending radar contacts, and launched a couple of seconds later once they confirmed hostiles. Six turrets each released a trio of anti-air missiles at the distant Firehawks, and ECM defenses activated to befuddle the descending bombs. The Vipers burned their engines and shot southwest, dropping flares and chaff.

The SAMs ascended and exploded among the countermeasures and the Firehawks. Chen grit his teeth as they went evasive, weaving around the missiles that the chaff and flares couldn't trick. The air shook around them as enemy munitions detonated, and he heard a scream over the radio.

"Three, hit!" shouted a voice. A moment later the explosions ended. Chen pulled up Viper Three's feeds, and sucked in a breath. Viper Three was dropping into a nosedive, one engine gone and another leaking flame and smoke. Its wings were shredded and the EAA core was destroyed.

"Three, eject!" Chen ordered, and midway through his command the cockpit exploded open and the pilot launched out of the Firehawk's remains. A few seconds later a parachute bloomed, and the pilot began to descend.

"Lead, I'm clear," Three reported. "No injuries."

"Copy that, Three," Chen said, exhaling in relief. "Lawrence, connect to Pyramid."

"_Done."_

"Pyramid, Viper Lead," he called. "Missile released. I have a pilot down. Transponder active, need recovery."

"_Acknowledged, Viper Lead. Diverting a bird to pick your pilot up," _came the response from one of Pyramid Base's myriad comms officers. _"Acquiring BDA now. Viper, targets are burning. Good job."_

"Acknowledged Pyramid. RTB. Viper Lead out." He switched comms back to his squad. "Three, that's coming out of your paycheck."

"Fuck you, sir," Three replied, and Chen barked out a laugh. The apparent lack of discipline was typical among squads who had the honor of SEAD work.

"Or maybe you'll just pay for the rounds when we get back to base," he suggested.

"I'd rather pay for my bird, sir," Three grumbled.

* * *

The shockwaves from the exploding SAM and shredder turret bunkers echoed around the pumping station, jolting off-duty soldiers out of their beds and sending the on duty guards to defensive stations. Nod troops, clad in desert-brown cloaks and shemags and goggles, bolted for the armories and vehicle sheds while someone belatedly triggered the alarm.

The second wave of the strike force swooped over the pumping station while the Nod security was still reacting to the sudden attack, screaming over the now cleared airspace. The led element were A-17 Orca ground-strike craft, a variant of the A-15 that sacrificed maneuverability for speed, armor, and range. The A-17s were not designed to hover over a battlefield and provide concentrated close-air support. Instead, the smaller, sleeker craft jetted over the pumping station, loosing anti-personnel and anti-structural rockets at the vehicle sheds and armories. Incendiary warheads dove into the armored sheds and detonated, sending flares of blinding light that illuminated the darkened compound, and bright, searing flames erupted from the structures. By the time anyone on the ground brought an anti-air launcher to their shoulder, the A-17s had already peeled off, leaving room for the third wave of the assault.

Ten Hammerhead gunships, flanked by eight A-22 Orca "Spec-Ops" craft, charged over the horizon toward the pumping station, and the moment their gunners came within range they opened fire with miniguns and anti-personnel rockets. A virtual river of tracer fire swept over the exterior of the pumping station thanks to the dozens of miniguns the VTOL craft sported, and many of the Nod soldiers still in the open were cut to bloody ribbons by the massed fire.

The suddenness of the attack and the raw firepower involved were too much for the limited Nod garrison to withstand. Most of the troops on the ground were already dead, and those still alive retreated into the few buildings not flattened by the initial two waves of strike craft. The Hammerheads slowed as they approached, while the A-22 gunships circled around the perimeter of the station.

Unlike the A-15s, the A-22s were not designed as primary ground strike craft to kill tanks and hardened targets. They carried a pair of miniguns, two unguided rocket pods, and a six-man squad of riflemen on exterior benches. Where the A-17s sacrificed maneuverability for speed and armor, the A-22 sacrificed armor and speed for sheer maneuverability and the capacity to carry a rifle squad into battle. The lighter Orcas were intended to support special operations raids like this one, and were roughly analogous to the older MH-6 "Little Bird" craft the United States had used in the 20th century in a similar role. Once they had secured the outer perimeter, they began to descend and drop off their troops to surround the complex, with one exception, which headed for the pumping station itself.

The Hammerheads, meanwhile, came to a halt inside the compound and began dropping lines. GDI troops started fast-roping down into the corpse-and-debris-strewn lot. One of the men descending was a bit larger than the rest, and his GDI-issue ceramic battle armor did not fit perfectly because of the haste in issuing it, but the Colonel's insignia on his uniform was not to be argued with.

Colonel Nick "Havoc" Parker hit the pavement and stepped forward, dropping into a crouch with his weapon shouldered, covering his sector. The rest of the rifle team on his Hammerhead followed suit, and once they were down, he checked his HUD. The remaining air-assault troops, drawn from A Company from the 22nd Special Operations Battalion, was fanning out across the compound, securing structures, with the exception of Second Platoon, which had been assigned to take the pumping station.

He didn't issue any orders; he didn't need to. This company was made up of some of the best air-assault troops in the Initiative. Second Platoon's troops started toward the doors leading into the main floor of the pumping station, and Parker followed.

Truth be told, when he'd volunteered to head up this operation, he knew that he wouldn't be needed in the field. He could have just stayed back in the temporary airfield they'd set up a distance away and commanded from the safety and objectivity of the comms trailer. But he didn't volunteer himself to Karrde's task force to command; he'd volunteered to _fight._

The NCOs and platoon commanders knew what they were doing. Captain Hieatt, head of the air-assault company, knew what he was doing. They'd take care of the details. Havoc intended to do what he did best: live up to his name.

There were two sets of man-entry doors to the pumping station's main floor, on either side of the big roll-up doors that would let vehicles inside. Fireteams stacked up on either side of the doors, and the squad sergeants sent the hand signal for "bang and frag." The breachers set charges on the doors, and a pair of grenadiers readied their launchers.

When the order went out, the breachers blew the doors in with a teeth rattling detonation. Before the blast finished echoing through his ears, Parker saw the grenadiers fire their weapons. The first rounds through were frag grenades, then followed by cluster flashbangs. The former exploded inside the room, flinging shrapnel in all directions and forcing heads down. The second set consisted of nine flashbang grenades looped around a central charge; once they flew the desired distance the charge exploded, launching the flashbangs around the large interior room. The flashbangs in turn detonated, filling the main chamber with searing light and deafening sonic claps.

Colonel Parker led the way in, GD2 shouldered, and wished he had something heavier. Maybe he would snatch a Zone Trooper-issue railgun from the armory when he got back to base.

* * *

Unnoticed in the chaos below, the lone A-22 that didn't drop troops on the perimeter instead swung over the top of the pumping station. It came to a hover over the rooftop of the station's central structure, and a single figure in bulky armor dropped off the side of the Orca. He fell into a low crouch on the rooftop, and went to work.

Below, Captain Amaefule, commanding officer of the Nod garrison, was berating his men, even as his fingers hammered away at the keys of the control terminal before him. The control room on the top floor was made up lines of terminals and computer desks, with oft-neglected monitors for the pumping station itself lining the walls. A wide bay window took up one wall, normally giving the staff a wonderful view of the desert, though now simply showing a panoramic view of the fires and chaos below.

"No, you idiot!" he hissed and he activated the scrubbing program that would flash the optical drives and then flood the remaining storage with junk data. "Flush and flash the drives first. Then break them!"

"But we only need to break-" one of the soldiers protested, standing over a hard drive riddled with bullets. While he and the rest of the squad wore the uniforms of the Brotherhood's professional infantry, his helmet was off and he only wore the torso plates of his armor; the squad had been roused from bed quickly and had barely had time to grab their vests and personal weapons.

"They can recover data from fragments!" Amaefule cut him off. "Flush, then flash, then break! Don't fuck around, just do it!" He turned back to his terminal, and saw that the wiping process had started. Good. They would need only a few minutes.

The control room's data was of limited value compared with the labs below, but he wouldn't give the enemy anything. Besides, they still possessed important intelligence: resource logs, energy reports, communications logs, records of supply and personnel, and so on. Amaefule had long ago learned that the only data that the enemy didn't find useful was the data you destroyed, especially when the enemy had EVAs that could sort through the junk even human analysts couldn't be asked to sift.

"Once the files are wiped, we'll deploy the incendiaries and then get down below," he ordered. "Buy the labs enough time to torch everything."

There was an explosion outside, loud enough to come in over the general din, and he glanced up. His radio chirped, and the dark-skinned, clean-shaven face of Lieutenant Narique appeared in the corner of his visor's HUD.

"Captain, we're getting overrun!" he reported. "They've nearly taken the bottom level!"

"Hold your position for a few more moments, Lieutenant," Amaefule ordered. "We're almost done up here."

"Sir, one of the GDI troopers has killed half my men single-handedly! I think he's a com-"

The ceiling blew in, silencing the Lieutenant's warnings.

Amaefule's head went numb, and he could hear nothing. He blinked,a nd found himself lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He sucked in a breath, belatedly realizing that the air had been blasted out of his lungs, and he started scrabbling to his feet, recognizing a breaching charge when he saw it and knowing what inevitably followed. He didn't bother shouting commands; he simply highlighted the squad using the HUD and his eyes, and ordered them to open fire at the center of the room and the rapidly-spreading cloud of smoke and dust.

He didn't know if anyone was obeying his orders, but he struggled to his feet, slewing like a drunken fool, and brought his assault rifle to his shoulder. It felt like it weight a couple of tons, but struggle and forced the weapon up.

There was movement in the cloud, and he saw a sudden searing flash of light, accompanied by a shudder rolling through the floor.

A black-armored Brotherhood soldier across the room was standing, weapon leveled at the unseen threat, and he simply came apart from the stomach with a gaping hole blown in the steel wall behind him. He fell apart, the bisecting wound cauterized and smoking. The soldier's biometrics flatlined on his HUD.

Something moved in the cloud, twitching in another direction, and another bright flash of blue-white light filled the room, and another jolt went through the floor. Amaefule thought he saw a line following the flash, like a trail of superheated air, and an arm went flying through the air, gripping a pistol. The rest of the body was nowhere to be found. Another flatline.

The figure took two quick steps to the side, and the weapon fired twice. The floor shivered again, and two more unseen soldiers died. Amaefule got rifle leveled and sighted, and nearly fired a burst when another Nod trooper, this one only armed with a large, curved combat knife, surged up and swung at the looming figure in the smoke. Amaefule could clearly see the man - fearless, desperate or both - silhouetted in the fires visible in the wide window, and the massive shape whirled on him with impossible speed. It spun toward him, and the weapon rose up and smacked across, hitting the knife so hard it went flying across the room and sent the soldier stumbling sideways from the force of the blow.

The massive weapon swung back, the butt impacting with the soldier, and he was launched back to slam into the window. The armored glass spideredwebbed from where his back hit it.

The Captain fired, and though he couldn't hear the report, the rifle kicked hard against his shoulder. He steadied his feet as he emptied the weapon's magazine into the looming figure at less four meters away, and he saw the attacker recoil from the first few impacts. Forty rounds burned away at tremendous speed, but before he'd gotten a quarter of the way through the magazine the figure whirled on him, weapon rising.

The smoke had cleared enough that, through the muzzle flare of his rifle, Amaefule could see his attacker. Whatever gender he or she possessed was indistinguishable behind layers of brown-and-gray camouflaged composite armor. Synthetic musculature covered by an armored weave sheathed whatever wasn't covered by the armor itself, and the helmet was dominated by a dark visor. It wore a jetpack on its back, and a dark-gray GDI emblem was etched into the armor's chestplate. In its arms was a carbine with a bulky power generator where the magazine would be, and Amaefule realized that it had to be a scaled-down railgun simply by the effect it had on his men.

His weapon clicked empty, and the Nod officer realized with a sinking feeling that none of his rounds had penetrated the looming creature's powered armor.

The GDI commando leveled the railgun at him, and the last thing Captain Amaefule felt was the floor shuddering one more time.

* * *

Trucks packed the main room on the first floor of the pumping station. It was a place used for loading and unloading supplies and equipment and performing maintenance on the maze of pipes and machines lining the chamber and running up toward the ceiling on all sides: a classic industrial complex of catwalks and multicolored metal pipes leading from heavy mechanical equipment. Several large catwalks ran overhead, and the trucks filling the floor below were loaded with crates and barrels and sealed metal and ceramic containers marked with biohazard and tiberium symbols.

Nod soldiers were everywhere: hiding among the trucks, crouched on the overhead catwalks, or lurking among the machines, and the GDI troops storming the room found themselves caught in close, savage combat. Rifles sounded, bullets ricocheting off trucks and machinery, the noise deafening in such tight confines. Brown-and-gray ceramic met black armored soldiers, often exchanging shots so close that their enemies' blood splashed on their armor. Knives hissed from sheaths, and rifle stocks clashed. Soldiers on both sides howled and screamed and fell, gasping or gurgling, in combat that was medieval in both proximity and brutality. It was a nightmarish, face-to-face tangle of chaos, where command devolved and discipline, reaction, and a steady hand prevailed over any sort of tactics.

In this environment, Havoc reigned.

The GD2, even in carbine configuration, was too large for his tastes. He slung it in favor of a .45 caliber GS21 submachinegun, loaded with armor-piercing rounds to punch through Nod strike plates, and a long combat knife. The GS21 was a more compact weapon than the standard GDS-4, with a box magazine that ran the length of the weapon from the top and small enough to be used in one hand if need be, and better suited to the kind of combat Havoc was engaged in. He left a dozen corpses in his wake as he prowled forward between the trucks, hunting.

He was between two trucks, with less than a meter and half of space between them. He advanced, GS21 raised, and caught a hint of movement ahead over the din surrounding him. He dropped into a crouch right as a black-armored figure swept around the corner, weapon raised. In the heartbeat it took the Nod trooper to realize his opponent was crouched below his line of fire, Havoc squeezed the trigger, and four armor-piercing .45 caliber rounds punched through the soldier's abdomen. He fell back, screaming, his cries barely audible over the chaos and the sharp echo of the submachinegun. Another soldier leapt around the corner, rifle tracking; he was alert but startled, and also missed Parker for the critical instant. Havoc put another trio into his legs and flank, and he stumbled back, rifle firing into the floor. The tight confines howled with a ricochet, but Havoc ignored the wild shots whipping about and squeezed the trigger again. The second soldier took two more in the chest and fell, twitching. He rose and strode forward, sweeping the gap behind the two trucks and finding them clear.

The wounded soldier was still thrashing and crying in pain, and Parker's knife dipped down and across in a quick, economical stab. The enemy soldier went still, and he kicked the weapons away from the bodies.

He checked his HUD and found GDI troops advancing well up the left side of the room, firing up into the catwalks overhead and clearing them of shooters. They gave a good firing angle but offered no cover themselves, and within moments the catwalks were littered with the corpses of hose who didn't fall back. The right side of the garage/maintenance area was a different story; he could see simply by their positions that the GDI troops on that side of the room were pinned down, and the intense fire on that end told him the enemy had a strong position and temporary fire superiority.

He navigated between the trucks, a faint map displayed on his HUD, compiled by the EVA assigned to the operation from everyone's helmet cameras. Beautiful tech, wished he had it back when he was young and storming Raveshaw's villa, or breaking into the Temple of Nod.

Those memories brought a smile to his face as he slid around a truck and came face to face with another Nod soldier, two meters away. The black-armored figure was apparently pulling security for his fireteam, as two other Nod soldiers were firing in the opposite direction.

The Brotherhood trooper was fast, and his weapon snapped up to sight Havoc in a heartbeat, but two .45 rounds punched through his visor before he could squeeze the trigger.

Havoc was faster.

The Nod soldier flopped backward, and one of his companions spotted the sudden movement. The Colonel couldn't tell if he was calling for help as he whirled and tried to level his weapon at the new threat, but it didn't matter. The soldier pulling security, alert from threats from that direction and ready to engage, hadn't been fast enough. Well before the next trooper even got his weapon all the way around, Havoc's GS21 put four bullets into his heart and lungs. The third soldier barely realized he was under fire before two more rounds dropped him.

Havoc slid by the twitching bodes, kicking their weapons away, and circled around to the rear of the enemy strongpoint. He leaned around a truck and sighted four Nod soldiers, one with a squad machinegun, and a figure in much heavier, black armor. For an instant, he thought it was a Black Hand, but he quickly realized the armor was too light, and he held an assault rifle instead of a laser or flamethrower. An Acolyte then, in semi-powered armor. They seemed blissfully unaware that he'd just taken out their flank support.

Five Nod soldiers, one an elite in heavy armor, with enough discipline and skill to hold down the entire advance on that flank. Taking on that many skilled opponents would be suicide, even if by surprise.

So Colonel Parker did what he did best: he told the odds to sit down and watch.

A grenade rolled toward the enemy position's right side, and they Nod troops were so focused on pinning down the enemy that they only realized it was there when it blew one man to hamburger and sent another flopping to the floor, howling in unexpected agony. The Acolyte recoiled in surprise, sparks flying from his armor, and Havoc rose, GS21 blazing. He pumped several bursts into the two Nod soldiers on the left side. One went down with blood flying from holes in his thighs and lower back, and the other spun around, taking five rounds across his left bicep, shoulder, and flank. He fell to the floor and went still, his companion thrashing weakly in a pool of bright blood.

The Acolyte whirled toward the new threat, and Colonel Parker emptied the rest of the submachinegun's ample magazine into the armored Nod priest as he charged forward. More than half the shots missed, and many more just deflected off the heavy black armor, but at least one got through, judging by the way the priest jerked backward. Another round skipped off the helmet, and a third looked to have punched through the priest's left forearm plating, judging by the blood that erupted from the wound.

Havoc's weapon clicked empty, and he slammed it across into the Acolyte's faceplate just as the priest's rifle discharged. Two rounds hit Havoc in the chestplate, one deflecting and the second impacting like a hammer but flattening on the heavy ceramic plate. He snarled, ignored the pain, and swept his knife up and weaved it around into the priest's right forearm. The blade slid in between the glove and the forearm plate, slashing into the back of the Acolyte's wrist.

He ducked and sidestepped as the power-armored priest retaliated with a reflexive forward kick - a quick, ugly blow that was standard when facing a foe in close, designed to collapse the enemy's chest beneath a power-assisted boot. As Havoc sidestepped around the blow, he brought the knife up, jamming it into a gap in the underarm of the Acolyte.

The priest whirled, faster than an un-assisted human could manage, and Parker ducked and slid down, pulling the bloody knife away before he could cut deep enough to kill. The priest's swing was wild and violent, and the assault rifle slammed into the side of the armored truck so hard that the barrel bent upward with a metallic howl and the panel bent inward. Havoc shot up to his feet, dropping the GS21 and tossing the knife to his right hand.

The power-armored priest dropped his rifle and swung back toward Havoc, which made his next strike easier. As the Acolyte spun, the Colonel stabbed his knife up, weaving the tip under the priest's chin. The Acolyte's forward momentum carried him into the knife, and it slid up into his throat, driving deep.

Havoc twisted as the blade impacted, pushing the Acolyte aside and deflecting his momentum lest the armored priest throw him to the ground. The Acolyte stumbled and the dropped to his knees with a clatter of ceramic on concrete, grabbing at the knife and pulling it free. Blood poured from his torn throat, in almost certainly lethal amounts.

Havoc took no chances. He scooped up his GS21, reloaded quickly as the Acolyte tried to stem the blood flow, and shot him twice in the back of the head.

He heard boots behind him, and the chamber was growing quiet, with only sporadic firing on the far side. He turned to see a GDI fireteam advancing toward him, weapons at the ready, but he could read their body language clear as a bell.

"Sir," one of the trooper said. His IFF tagged him as a Corporal Kim. "Colonel, that . . . ." His loss for words made Parker grin as he wiped the knife on the Acolyte's cape.

"What kept you guys?" Parker asked. "Come on, we've got work to do. And tell your friend upstairs to hurry down when he's done pretending to be a real commando."

* * *

At the bottom of the elevator shaft, Brother-Sergeant Husef al-Muqar had assembled what remained of his security force. Feeds from the rest of the platoon and squad commanders told him that, with a few exceptions, all of the Nod troops above had been killed, wounded, or captured. Only the troops on duty in the lab, along with al-Muqar and his fellow warrior-priests, remained to defend the research facility.

The result was inevitable. He had a single eight-man rifle squad, two Confessors, a trio of Acolytes, and himself and Brother-Corporal Villafonte. The base's garrison had not been strong and the Black Hand presence had been only token; the facility had been better-guarded through being relatively innocuous than by being well-defended, especially with the power-bases at Alexandria and Cairo in relative proximity. The outer defenses were appropriate to a facility that needed to be protected from mutant raiders or attacks of opportunity. They hadn't anticipated a huge commando assault like this.

He shook his head. That was irrelevant now. The only thing that mattered at this point was denying the enemy. The Confessors had already executed the few remaining scientists - to their evident surprise - and were now destroying components and computer files and lab equipment with the help of a couple of the riflemen.

The rest of the remaining troops were assembled outside the elevators, in the receiving bay that both the personnel and cargo lifts opened into. They had hastily assembled a defensive barricade at the opposite side of the room, built out of desks, crates, and a couple of forklifts, and had cleared the rest of the room to open up their firing lines. Incendiary claymores were set up on either side of the elevators, in case anyone managed to get through the hail of fire, beams, and bullets that the Nod troops would lay down the moment the elevator doors opened.

They would be overwhelmed eventually; ammunition would run out or GDI would throw explosives down the lift shafts, or they would tunnel in from the sides or above. But Brother-Sergeant al-Muqar intended to make them pay for it, and buy his men enough time to destroy all the evidence they could.

As he stood behind the barricade, flame rifle in hand, he thought he heard something on his suit's audio sensors. He increased the gain, concentrating on the sounds coming in over his earpieces. He could hear labored breathing from some of the infantrymen, others whispering prayers of benediction and salvation. One man kept flicking the safety of his weapon on and off. There were crackling fires somewhere behind him as the Confessors burned what was flammable and melted what wasn't. Rumbling air processors audible from overhead vents, humming generators, and the faint thrum of electrical conduits. And somewhere over the din . . . Engines?

Or a jetpack?

"Brace yourself, brothers and sisters," al-Muqar said. "The enemy is imminent. Deny him in the name of Ka-"

The personnel elevator's door blew open, hurling noise and shrapnel and smoke into the room. The infantry jerked in surprise, but the Black Hand answered instantly. Villafonte and the Acolytes laced the elevator door with laser beams and bullets, and al-Muqar triggered his flame rifle, sending a column of white-hot fire across the room and through the smoking gap. The riflemen opened fire and instant later, pouring rounds through the gap.

Then Brother-Corporal Villafonte's head blew apart in an explosion of metal and blood. A moment later, one of the Acolytes fell, the armor on his back exploding in a fountain of blood and ceramic plate. Al-Muqar noted the blood shooting at an angle, down and back, and swung his gaze up toward the ceiling. The third Acolyte went down, shot through the chest as well, and the Black Hand saw where the rounds had come from: a vent duct running along the top of the room.

It was too small to hide in; not even a Shadow could fit inside that vent. But the shots had come from the vent duct, right at where the flimsy metal met the concrete wall . . . Just over the elevator door.

Al-Muqar ducked and dodged sideways, and the fourth shot skipped off his shoulder armor. He ducked behind one of the forklifts, and he pieced together what had most likely happened: the enemy (almost certainly a commando, damn him) had likely come down the elevator shaft and used a fiber-optic cable or other device to scout the room, threaded through the duct. Once done, he'd either used an onboard computer or an EVA to triangulate firing angles using that visual data through the flimsy metal of the duct. He then planted a charge on the elevator to draw attention, then shot through the thin duct walls at the Black Hand troops while they were distracted.

_Clever bastard._

Al-Muqar did not wait for the enemy to adjust. He rose, raising his flame rifle, and leveled it at the far end of the vent duct.

"Squad, ignore the elevator!" he ordered, and triggered the projector. White fire exploded out toward the vent. "Engage the vent! Follow my tracer!"

He didn't know if the fire would actually burn through the duct to hurt the commando, but he knew the heat would surprise and disorient him, which was good enough. The rest of the surviving troops (two more were dead, shot by the railgun through the thin metal) followed his lead, pouring rounds into where he was spraying flame.

Something flew through the elevator door, and he realized too late what it was.

The chaff grenade detonated, filling the air with charged strips of metal that disrupted electronic sensors, including the ones on al-Muqar's helmet. He jerked his head as static filled the monitors on his helmet, and he quickly switched to pure visual detection before-

Al-Muqar stumbled backward, his chest going suddenly numb, and his helmet finished switching over to visual in time for him to see the commando, hanging upside down in the elevator doorway, legs hooked to a strut or beam or something inside the shaft. The remaining riflemen shifted their aim toward the visible threat, but the brown-and-gray-armored figure brought his weapon around and, with almost casual disdain, began blowing apart the remaining soldiers. A couple of shots from the Nod troops deflected off his armor, but he didn't seem to care as he gunned down the last couple of troops in the span of a heartbeat, his rifle twitching to each new target just long enough to fire. Al-Muqar thought he saw the man sway backward with each shot, but that might have been the confusion of a dying brain.

The last of his men fell apart, and al-Muqar could only lie back, partially slumped against a wall and blood pooling around his body. His limbs refused to respond, and he could barely keep his eyes opened. The commando dropped down into the shaft, flipping over as he fell, and started to clamber up into the room. The Brother-Sergeant watched, hopeful, but as the figure started to climb he paused, glancing around the room, and spotted the incendiary claymores. He fired a few shots to either side of the room, hitting each claymore and blasting it apart before it could detonate, and then ascended and started across the room.

As al-Muqar's vision darkened, he saw the commando calmly climb over their barricade, shoot one still-moving Nod soldier in the head, and then pull out a breaching charge and set it on the door the Nod faithful had tried to defend.

_Forgive me, Kane, _al-Muqar begged, and there was a sudden blast of noise.

Then nothing.

* * *

The cargo elevator descended to the bottom floor, and Colonel Parker was the first off, followed by a dozen GDI riflemen and a squad of engineers. They were greeted by a scene of wanton carnage, with Nod corpses spread all along a makeshift barricade on the far side of the room, and a single figure on gray-and-brown armor sitting almost casually on top of one of the desks making up said barricade.

"Colonel," the commando said, standing up and hefting his rail carbine. His words were filtered through the helmet's voice processor, coming out slightly flat. "Glad to see you made it down here, sir."

"Lab section clear?" Parker asked, striding toward the commando, and the man nodded. His body language was indolent, and his tone a hair shy of insubordinate. Parker approved; commando training produced excellent soldiers, but it also produced _arrogant _ones. As far as he was concerned, that was how it should be. After all, the results were plain to see, and decorated the wall directly behind him.

"Aside from these," the commando said, gesturing to the dismembered and splattered corpses, "There were four others in the lab, trying to destroy the data."

"Did they?" Parker asked, and the commando shrugged.

"Data wants to be free," he replied. "And I signed up to protect freedom. Violently. Looks like they killed the science staff, though, so you'll have to make so with the kind of intel that doesn't ask for directorial pardons, sir."

Parker nodded, satisfied, and glanced over the bodies of the Nod troops. Aside from armored riflemen, he counted two more Acolytes and a pair of Black Hands. He grunted, glancing back at the commando.

"Black hands in full kit. Real tough guys," he said with a nod of approval. "Good work, Lieutenant . . . ."

"Fullerton, sir," the commando said.

"Keep this up, Fullerton, and you'll be a Captain soon enough."

"I'll endeavor to fail a bit more, lest that unpleasant scenario happen, Colonel."

"Cut the eloquence, commando," Parker said with a grin. "We don't deal in big, witty words here."

"I'll work on forgetting all my doctorates, right away, Colonel," Fullerton said, and started toward the door. "Keep on your toes, sir. I might have missed one. Unlikely, but you never know."

"All right, people," Colonel Parker said, turning to the troops behind him. "Let's get in there and get this place sorted out. I want all this gear loaded onto the Oxen within the hour. Move!"

* * *

The officer's lounge was quiet and empty at this hour. It was already sparsely-appointed, mostly made up of ceramics and plastics that were fabricated on-site, with little concern put to decoration. The most beautiful thing in the lounge was the air conditioning unit. Only three people graced the room: Major Galwansky, who was moonlighting as the bartender, and two men with a significant part of their bodies replaced by augmentations seated at one of the pre-fabbed plastic tables.

Commander Karrde raised a glass to Colonel Parker.

"A job well done, Colonel," Karrde said, and Havoc snorted.

"Wasn't my job," he said. "The new kids have some fancy tech these days. Never appreciated it until I saw it in action."

"What was it like?" Karrde asked. "First War? You didn't have jetpacks or augs or powered armor or railguns like the 'kids' these days."

"Nah, it was the same back in those days," Havoc said, and took a long gulp of his beer. "Skill was important, but you relied on tech as much. Whatever you could pry out of the enemy's hands in field, most often."

He paused, staring down into the beer.

"The commandos took a lot of casualties in that war," he muttered, and shook his head. "For a good cause, though. We didn't become commandos because we wanted a cushy posting where we pressed buttons to blow up cities. We wanted to be on the sharp end of the stick. Needed the impossible done, you sent in a commando. Support optional."

A few moments of silence followed. The Major swung by and brought them new beers; Karrde tossed him a couple of fabricator coupons in turn. Money was useful, but out here, but the tiberium-fueled fabricators could get one things one _really_ wanted or needed, so the fabricator coupons every soldier got along with their checks were worth a hell of a lot more than money for the commissary.

"So, what do you think of the mutants?" Karrde asked. "And their commander?"

"Hm," Parker said. "Four beers, maybe."

"Eh?" Karrde asked, and Havoc shrugged.

"The crystal spikes might work on some women," he said. "And she was probably pretty cute when she was younger, but I'd need at least four before I'd throw that do-"

"No," Karrde said, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. "I meant . . . Combat."

Parker laughed, and Karrde wondered if he'd done that deliberately.

"You mean if I think we should trust them, right?" he asked, and then shrugged. "I worked with mutants before. Won't find anyone this day and age that's quite so pissed off, unless you look on the other side of battleground. Good fighters. Decent soldiers, if they're led right. Burke seems the kind."

He took a another gulp, then set his glass down.

"But you don't need to ask me that, Commander," he said. "You've already trusted them enough to launch a raid based on their intel. So are you really uncertain, or just second-guessing yourself?"

Karrde blinked in surprise at Havoc's insight. The Colonel's mouth crooked up in a smile.

"Kane didn't think I was very smart either," he said. "Anyway, you've already thrown in with them. Their intel looks to pan out. I say go for it."

The Commander nodded at that. Parker spoke truly; he had made the decision, but he was second-guessing himself again.

"You may be right," Karrde said, but Parker wasn't finished.

"Commander," the colonel said, waving his glass in the air. "No officer got anywhere second-guessing himself. There's confidence and there's arrogance. Leave the latter to the commandos and fighter jocks who need it when they're in the shit and only ornery cussed outrage and disdain can see them through the other side. When you make a decision, stick to it, because backpedaling gets men killed and gets campaigns halted, and then you never get to sleep with hot girls from InOps, and have to settle for the big Russian ones whose gender is malleable, and maybe some Slavic slab who names her machinegun after a Romanian princess, but before the sheep get . . . ."

He trailed off at Karrde's expression of mixed amusement and befuddlement.

"Beer!" Parker said, and laughed. "Crazy stuff happens, right? But irrelevant."

He jabbed a finger at Karrde.

"Be sure of yourself, and the men will follow you. As long as you're not an asshat, you'll be fine." He took another drink. "And if you are an asshat, I reserve the right to beat the shit out of you."

"Acceptable," Karrde said, and raised his own mug. Glasses clinked, and they took a long drag.

Karrde was mostly finished with his pull on the mug when his Comcom began vibrating. Grumbling, he set the glass down and keyed it on. Parker snorted.

"You always wear that thing?" he asked.

"Its grafted to my skin, just about," the Commander replied. He brought up the command-level memo he'd just received, high priority. His eyes flicked over it, and sobriety ensued.

"Well, shit," he muttered, and waved a hand to the bartender. "Major! Two soberalls!"

"Ah, hell, what now?" Parker asked, and the Major hurried over with two pills and some water.

"Not what, who," Karrde said, accepting his pill and water with a nod of thanks. He downed them. "General Granger is the who, and he wants to talk to us now."

"Hell," Parker grumbled and threw back the last of his beer, then the soberall pill and water. "Let's see what the bald man thinks is so damned important."

They rose and hurried out of the officer's lounge, and Karrde found his heart pounding and his head starting to ache. Soberall was like the full night's sleep after drinking, plus the hangover. He was going to be aching for a while, but he needed to be sharp.

After all, something had spooked the stone wall that was General Jack Granger to the point that he had just ordered an immediate assault on Alexandria.

* * *

**_Intel - GDI Archives - Excerpt: A Concise Explanation of the GDI Commando Program - Colonel Jack Harper, GDI 22nd Special Operations Battalion_**

_Ninety-eight percent washout rate. Twenty-two percent fatality rate. Some tout this like it is supposed to be a good thing. Others use it to criticize the commando training program, saying it is a complete waste of good human life. Neither side knows the truth. Technically, yes, the program produces a twenty-two percent fatality rate before training is completed. The reason why is both simple and complex._

_Simply put, the training produces a twenty-two percent average fatality rate, which is the exact same current fatality rate attributed to active duty commandos. The reason for that is because as far as the Commando Program is concerned, you never graduate. Every mission is a brutal learning experience, and the loss ratios are high, despite the advanced weapons, the strength-enhancing reactive polymer weaves beneath the reinforced armor plating. These are men and women who plunge into the most dangerous operations across the globe: reconnoiter into Nod-held cities, pursuit of mutant raiding parties, assaults on dangerous sites in the Red Zones. They die._

_There is no graduation for a commando. You join, you learn, you fight, you kill, and if you don't wash out by going back to your old unit, you die in service. In "training."_

_Its brutal, but that's what the commando is all about. If you didn't have the mindset to commit yourself to the life of the commando, you can't handle the mental stresses of the job in the first place._

_That's where the washout rate comes from. That's where the high fatalities in "training" come from. There are no bloody drills and bloodless battle; for a GDI commando, they are one and the same. Learn or die._

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_In case you can't tell, I really love writing Havoc. This chapter made the lovable old badass cyborg killing machine just _click_ for me._  
_

Well, we've been leading up to Alexandria and Cairo for a while now. Time to get this party started!

Until next chapter . . . .


End file.
